Thursday, September 25
I took the recycling in today, which took me through the industrial part of town. It's hard not to notice how many of the factories are empty shells now... so many have shut down, just this year. It's not that I mourn them, the foul things, but there's something indefinably sad about empty buildings.
And, besides, I know exactly how many people have been thrown out of work by those closings, and how desperate their situation is. My hometown is - was - a factory town. But now the factories are moving to Mexico or China or somewhere else, where the wages are cheap and the people more exploitable, and there's nothing to replace them. But it's also a really old town that's been here for hundreds of years... many of the people here haven't just lived here all their lives, but their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents lived here all *their* lives, too. And besides, even if they were to move - where to? There's no jobs anywhere else either, not for folks with high-school educations and twenty years' factory experience.
There's no jobs anywhere.
In a striking coincidence, I'd just been listening to a show on the BBC where someone or another (as often happens when I listen to these shows, the word "expert" is floating across my mind, looking for something to connect itself to) was being interviewed about the job situation. He said that these days it's basically not possible to find a job that would last for your whole life; companies were no longer hiring for life, but wanted to be able to fire and hire people as they needed them.
"But that's all cyclical, isn't it?" said the interviewer. "In ten years things could have turned around again, couldn't they?"
"No."
(I love BBC. Programs like this don't make it onto the air here.)
So the lifetime career of loyalty to one company is history... well, in the long run, that's probably a positive. Maybe people will start working for themselves instead of someone else.
But in the short run, it means empty factory buildings. We're in a time of change. And transitions - no matter how good the end result may be - suck.
And, besides, I know exactly how many people have been thrown out of work by those closings, and how desperate their situation is. My hometown is - was - a factory town. But now the factories are moving to Mexico or China or somewhere else, where the wages are cheap and the people more exploitable, and there's nothing to replace them. But it's also a really old town that's been here for hundreds of years... many of the people here haven't just lived here all their lives, but their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents lived here all *their* lives, too. And besides, even if they were to move - where to? There's no jobs anywhere else either, not for folks with high-school educations and twenty years' factory experience.
There's no jobs anywhere.
In a striking coincidence, I'd just been listening to a show on the BBC where someone or another (as often happens when I listen to these shows, the word "expert" is floating across my mind, looking for something to connect itself to) was being interviewed about the job situation. He said that these days it's basically not possible to find a job that would last for your whole life; companies were no longer hiring for life, but wanted to be able to fire and hire people as they needed them.
"But that's all cyclical, isn't it?" said the interviewer. "In ten years things could have turned around again, couldn't they?"
"No."
(I love BBC. Programs like this don't make it onto the air here.)
So the lifetime career of loyalty to one company is history... well, in the long run, that's probably a positive. Maybe people will start working for themselves instead of someone else.
But in the short run, it means empty factory buildings. We're in a time of change. And transitions - no matter how good the end result may be - suck.
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