It was suggested that the reason my hometown was doing so well economically was due to the fact that we had major employers such as the Future Shop (I'm sure this comment was meant to include the Super Store and WalMart). Why is it that small towns are so anxious to invite in low-paying companies under the pretense of creating work?

In a place like Courtenay in British Columbiastan, even those with skills and education, are faced with the real prospect (fear) of Future Shop being the only employer.

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Why is it that small towns are so anxious to invite in low-paying companies under the pretense of creating work?

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WalMart was welcomed here, with its low pay and part-time work, with the same ceremony and fanfare that would be reserved for the Second Coming. The papers (if you can call them that) talked about this event for months in advance. And this is news

Bringing in FutureShop and the like is an easy way to create "good" publicity. The Hamm government likes to brag about the latest call centre or large retail outlet it has enticed here with large tax breaks.

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By slashing its retail prices way below cost when it enters a community, Wal-Mart can crush our groceries, pharmacies, hardware stores, and other retailers, then raise its prices once it has monopoly control over the market.

But, say apologists for these Big-Box megastores, at least they're creating jobs. Wrong. By crushing local businesses, this giant eliminates three decent jobs for every two Wal-Mart jobs that it creates--and a store full of part-time, poorly paid employees hardly builds the family wealth necessary to sustain a community's middle-class living standard.

Indeed, Wal-Mart operates as a massive wealth extractor. Instead of profits staying in town to be reinvested locally, the money is hauled off to Bentonville, either to be used as capital for conquering yet another town or simply to be stashed in the family vaults (the Waltons, by the way, just bought the biggest bank in Arkansas).

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It's notoriously difficult for citizens to get traffic lights installed here. However, Walmart asked for one and got it. Then it moved the store to the other side of Argyle Mall, and guess what? they got another one.

Back a few years ago, London, like many other cities, bought into this idea that "we're shifting to a service economy", and are just now realizing that at some point someone has to make something for an economy to actually work.

The heavy industries in London-- industries that pay enough in wages for workers to buy homes and pay taxes and actually have enough money left over to support independant business and others in the service industry became the unwanted bastard child.

Now of course, the chickens are coming home to roost. Unfortunately, surviving industries are surviving because technology is allowing them to pare the workforce, so there's been little, if any job growth in established industries.

Meanwhile, city councils that have been nothing but catamites to real estate developers have sold off serviced industrial land to said developers.

So, London has no serviced industrial land with which to tempt new major start ups.

Imagine making billions while many of your employees barely make enough upon which to live.

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But when those Walmart jobs come at the expense of others-- maybe to the point where it creates more job loss than what it brings-- it makes you wonder why civic officials would be so eager in the first place?

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The job losses don't show up right away. The civic officials are often not interested in the long-term health of the city - they're interested in short-term political gain. And when something's going to be good in the short term - as the arrival of Wal-Mart would be, before the local businesses started to fail - a lot of people are too dumb or excited to look beyond that and ask themselves whether it's sustainable.

I mean, if you're unemployed and desperate, a Wal-Mart job looks better than nothing.

Superstore, well, I know the pay is crappy, your every keystroke is monitored (if you're a cashier), the customers are rude and tend to think you're stupid (this is true of most retail jobs - people don't think "paying for college," they think "best job this dumbass could get"), and most people I've talked to there don't like it, but I don't know whether they do anything illegal like Wal-Mart does. (Wal-Mart is infamous for making employees keep working after they punch out.)

[ November 19, 2002: Message edited by: Smith ]

[ November 19, 2002: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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And there a lot of desperate and unemployed people in Courtenay.

The high paying jobs in the bush and in the mills were gone long ago, so the wave of "jobs" that arrived with WalMart was welcomed by many.

Taking a look at the social cost these giants extract from the towns they are in - you have a lot of kids who cant get "real" jobs because all the "real" stores have been forced out of business, so whats left is MacDs, Super Store, Walmart, Home Depot - part time only, no benefits, lousy wages, abuse and not paying for the hours they do work. My daughter wasnt paid for two days on her last cheque and her supervisor insists she didnt work those days. And they do punch in and out but her time card went missing - somehow - mysteriously - now she writes it down in her little notebook and makes her supervisor intitial it - GO GIRL ! (Proud mother here).

These kids cannot afford a place to live so they have to share an apartment with three, four, five others which leads to a whole lot of nasty stress for them.

Never enough sleep because of conflicting hours and partying -- There is always one roommate who is a real slob, pulling off B&Es on the side, or selling drugs to make ends meet and then they all get sucked into the nasty spin off -

They cant afford transportation or education, and we are creating a whole generation of people living way way below the poverty level -- hopelessness, dispair, depression, desperation, drug abuse, drinking, anger,crime, frusteration -- and illness.

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One person even went as far as to say that they had been inside the store and thought it was beautiful

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Our governments have little or no requirements on industry having apprenticeship programs. England, for example, does.

That's why when you go into many Canadian plants, a large proportion of the skilled trades people are from the British Isles.

It's cheaper for industry to import skilled trades rather than take on the cost of an apprenticeship program.

The skilled trades require, I believe, about 2000 hours of on the job experience, coupled with college level schooling in their field.

How many of you had an old battleaxe of a teacher who didn't give a damn about the kids in the class but had a hundred years of teaching under his or her belt and therefore could never be fired or let go first when there are staff cutbacks? Meanwhile, the teachers with only a few years of experience but who are really enthusiastic about teaching get the shaft.

My former department manager now teaches at the internationally prestigious Ivey Business School here in London. While they demand high academic achievement, their profs also have to have experience in business too.

(as an aside, he said it was really funny to watch his conservative business types negotiate their contract)

The seniority thing presents some barriers. And, in many ways it isn't fair.

But on the other hand, it isn't fair to the guy who, it must be remembered, isn't responsible for the descriminatory hiring practices of the past to pay the lions share of penalty for it by having women jump the queue over him.

I could be wrong, but I believe the Oshawa local negotiated a clause that said if a newly hired woman could prove she applied for a job there, say ten years before, and was denied because she was a woman (assumed-- probably rightfully) then she'd start with ten years senority.

Politically, a very courageous thing to do by the union representatives.

(if in fact they did this. I don't know this for fact, but by hearsay.)

And, I bet thier courageous hides looked pretty strung up on the plant floor by guys displaced from jobs they waited in seniority line for.

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But on the other hand, it isn't fair to the guy who, it must be remembered, isn't responsible for the descriminatory hiring practices of the past to pay the lions share of penalty for it by having women jump the queue over him.

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Randians

ick! ick! ick!

[ November 19, 2002: Message edited by: Daoine ]

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I believe that is what's known as saying, "I'm all for feminism as long as I don't have to address my own privilege, acknowledge that I might have gotten my own position unfairly, or give up any of my unearned privilege."

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And meanwhile, the people who are guilty of descriminatory hiring practices in the past sit back and laugh as working class men and women fight each other over such things.

The school board tries to force older teachers into retirement with insulting retirement packages. A few years ago the provincial government dipped into teachers' pension funds so most can't afford to retire early, especially teachers like my mother who were single parents and couldn't afford to put money away. And the public wonders why teachers get so pissed off when the government threatens to make them work longer hours or denies them a pay raise. Do people think that when the bell rings a teacher is finished for the day? Ha.

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Younger teachers can be just as inflexible as older teachers. In fact, from what I hear younger teachers are more intent on doing things "by the book".

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Word. I'm not saying older teachers don't check out or stop growing, because a lot do - but my worst experiences as a student were almost invariably with younger teachers. Older teachers have generally been around long enough to see a few students flounder and to figure out that the kids aren't doing it to piss them off. Younger teachers are more likely, overall, to think "you didn't do your homework, therefore I'm a bad teacher" and get defensive and nasty.

And that's not even counting the Randians.

[ November 20, 2002: Message edited by: Smith ]

Of course I've known lots of older people who are incredible teachers. I've found in university that most of the really good professors are ones who have been doing it for years.

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And meanwhile, the people who are guilty of descriminatory hiring practices in the past sit back and laugh as working class men and women fight each other over such things.

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How many of you had an old battleaxe of a teacher who didn't give a damn about the kids in the class but had a hundred years of teaching under his or her belt and therefore could never be fired or let go first when there are staff cutbacks? Meanwhile, the teachers with only a few years of experience but who are really enthusiastic about teaching get the shaft.

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This is an offensive piece of ageism.

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Of course I've known lots of older people who are incredible teachers. I've found in university that most of the really good professors are ones who have been doing it for years.

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Pretty hard to argue with someone who takes all sides in an argument.

The worker who labours for 20, 25, or 30 years in a given job doesn't have "unearned privilege", as you call it Michelle, they have seniority and have earned it. BTW privilege, is an objectionable term when applied to any one in the working class, given the excesses of the rich. And as your contradictory quotes above indicate, age and seniority have nothing to do with competence.

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This is an offensive piece of ageism.

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I didn't say in that quote that all old teachers are battleaxes. I asked how many people have had one, because I'm sure I'm not the only one, and I won't apologize for saying so. However, I did generalize about younger teachers being more enthusiastic and you're right, I shouldn't have. I HAVE had several "old battleaxes" as teachers who had too much seniority to be fired first to make way for better teachers, and I think that's a pity. That doesn't mean I think all older teachers are like that.

And I'm sorry, but seniority is not "earned". It's a matter of being lucky enough to not have experienced any downsizing during your career. It most certainly is "unearned privilege" and it's ageism against people who are younger, to give them less job security than people who are older simply because they're younger and haven't had enough years to get that same seniority.

Older teachers who have learned over the years how to be excellent teachers (and I'm willing to bet there are more of those than there are the old battleaxe types - but I refuse to take back my comment that there ARE old battleaxe types because just about everyone I've ever known has had at least one of their teachers be that way) have earned their position because of their excellent teaching, in my opinion, not because they occupied their position for longer than a younger person has had the opportunity to do.

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See these jobs? If you do the trades training at school and become a journeyperson, you're in like Flynn. And there's a labor shortage in these trades right now. Here's a list of all the colleges that teach the trades. 20 bucks an hour, and you don't need to be married to a guy to benefit from that either."

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Sorry my good Dr. I apologize for seeming like I'm chasing you around today.

You could not be more right.

Contractors today (plumbers, gas fitters, carpenters, dry-wallers, etc.) will literally get down and welcome a tradesperson with open arms. In my business I have to plan weeks where I can't get a carpenter or a drywaller, or they leave in the middle of a job (at $40.00/hr, you were a little conservitive there) to go to another where they are guarenteed 12 hour days at full overtime, so $640/day.

And, sure there has been discrimination in the past, the classes I've been involved with as a guest instructor in the past 5 years, there are almost equal numbers of men and women, as it should be.

People really want the security of being financially sound or independent. A job is only one vehicle to achieve this security. People want to be able to put their head on their pillow at night, content in knowing that they have enough money to sustain a standard of living that is acceptable to them.

Some simple advice for establishing your own financial security. Consider the trends in society. What is happening. What it is the Baby Boomers will need in the next several years. This group of people have had the most dramatic effect on trends. Position yourself in front of these trends.

Next determine what you are good at. What do you like to do. Match these competencies with the trends to determine how you can best position yourself for success.

As an example. Many of you are excellent writers. Learn to write ads or copywright. Become an independent copywright agent.

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I'm sorry, but seniority is not "earned".

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See, that's what "unearned privilege" is all about - it's about people who get more privilege based on non-merit things like how old they are, or how much opportunity they've had to get somewhere.

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Two people are doing the same odious job in a union shop (teaching, assembling cars, picking up garbage etc.) - one for 5 years and the other for 30. The worker with 30 years experience has earned his standing by virtue of two and a half more decades of drudgery. This has nothing to do with "how old they are" - they could well be the same age.

By the way, here is another side of teaching many people do not know about. Many principals are more concerned about whether a new teacher can coach volleyball than their teaching ability. I can remember being grilled by a principal on what I knew about volleyball, would I be willing to attend a volley coaching clinic on my own time and at my own expense, volleyball, volleyball, etc. Oh yeah, can you teach math?

Jesus, I already stated in my last message that I shouldn't have generalized about younger teachers, what the fuck more do you want, blood? Get off my frigging case and debate what my actual POINT was rather than dragging a careless remark that I've already apologized for on and on.

As for seniority being earned by virtue of doing the same old job for the last 20 years as opposed to doing it for the last 2 years, I still say that's baloney. I see it in the same light that I see inheritance. "Oh, the reason why it's okay for my son to get my millions of dollars is because he's lived a millionaire's life ever since he was a baby. Our family has more experience being millionaires, and we have more experience owning property and the means of production, so just by virtue of us always HAVING been the rich people, we should continue to be the rich people. It's not like no one else has the opportunity to become rich like us, they just have to work at it and be lucky enough to have their fortune increase over the years without any downturns." That's basically what you're saying about people with seniority. They deserve the job because they've always had it.

As for this:

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Seniority is a holy grail in union shops - totally sacrosanct. How do you propose to change it without the intra-class warfare that Tommy mentioned and would, in fact, be so comforting to The Man (sic).

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Well that's just laughable. First of all, to address your "(sic)" - I specifically used capital letters for The Man because I'm referring to an old, collective term used to describe people in power.

Of course seniority is sacrosanct. It's sacrosanct because the people with seniority don't want to lose it to the people who haven't had the opportunity that they had to build up that seniority.

The idea that there can't be oppression WITHIN the working class is totally laughable. That's been one of the main feminist criticisms of progressive movements over the years - that men want to go out and save the world and their jobs and consider it a class struggle on behalf of everyone in the working class while telling women not to rock the boat and to be content in their pink collar jobs. A big part of anti-racist feminism is criticism of mainstream feminism when white, middle-class women assumed that they were speaking for all women but not allowing women of colour or poor women to have a voice.

If a plant has a hundred workers, then all of those hundred workers should be considered equals by the union that represents them. Unions expect the same level of loyalty from a person who has been working for a year as from a person who has been working for 20 years. They collect the same amount of dues without regard to how long the person has been there. If you think that people who have been working for 2 years should be a second-class citizen to someone who has been working 20 in the same unionized workplace, then why don't you expect the same graduated level of loyalty when strike time comes around? Why should I stand on the picket line for my union as the last person hired, if I know damn well that by the end of the strike, if any downsizing whatsoever results, the union will insure that I'm the first one to go?

Seniority is just another sub-set of class structure within the working class. If you can't see that there is a hierarchy of class within the class structure, then it's YOU who are blinded by false consciousness.

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Jesus, I already stated in my last message that I shouldn't have generalized about younger teachers, what the fuck more do you want, blood? Get off my frigging case and debate what my actual POINT was rather than dragging a careless remark that I've already apologized for on and on.

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Please don't swear at me. I didn't swear at you. If somewhere you made an apology for your ageist remark, thank-you. If I sense genuine regret I will thank you again.

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It doesn't surprise me that, as a man, you would see seniority as "sacrosanct"

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This is a blatantly sexist remark. You're saying I hold certain opinions because I'm a man not because I reasoned them out or genuinely believe in them. I'm sure there are many women in unions who hold similar views to mine on seniority issues. No matter your opinion of my opinions I believe I deserve the benefit of the doubt as to why I hold these opinions.

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I see it (seniority) in the same light that I see inheritance

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If this is an example of one of your POINTS it hardly bears debating. The essential point about inheritance is that daddy or mommy did it, with seniority I did it. Big difference!

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Seniority is just another sub-set of class structure within the working class. If you can't see that there is a hierarchy of class within the class structure, then it's YOU who are blinded by false consciousness.

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I know who my enemies are Michelle, and its not union workers with seniority, its not union workers without seniority and its not workers with no union representation. Any differences we all have with one another is nothing compared to the differences we have with the monied elites.

[ November 20, 2002: Message edited by: JimmyBrogan ]

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Seniority is just another sub-set of class structure within the working class. If you can't see that there is a hierarchy of class within the class structure, then it's YOU who are blinded by false consciousness

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Actually, seniority is a way to insure that unfair hiring/firing practices don't take place. If you leave a persons job up to a merit system you are leaving the job to the employers discression. A really STUPID thing to do.

As for an old battle-axe employee, the employer MUST take some responsibility for that. Perhaps the employee needs some more tools or training. It isn't fair to assume their attitudes are "created" in a vacuum.

Seniority is the best and least subjective system we have. Yes, loyalty is worth something.

There are a lot of great programs encouraging women to sign on to a trade, but they aren't good enough. Also, simply hiring women without ammending availability policies and allowing for child-care and maternity leave is kind of useless. "You're welcome here as long as you put your family second." is too common an attitude in the trades.

[ November 20, 2002: Message edited by: skadie ]

In addition, will there not be a negative multiplier effect here? These people will not be able to afford homes, so trades jobs will be affected, and so on.

Back then I couldn't come to an answer as to why everything didn't just fall apart if enough workers got fired. After all, look at the Great Depression. It dragged on and on and on and on, and unemployment stayed at between 10 and 25% for the US and Canada.

A few notes on seniority and women and my personal experience on the issue of women in the workplace.

As a union rep in a time of transition from an old style stamping plant to one of the more modern stamping plants with automation etc, the problem of senior employees being qualified for a job posting or lateral moves to a prefered job through seniority but not through experience or ability came up time and again.

It's my experience that workers who know they can't do a job-- some are functionally illiterate, for example, or have, in one case I dealt with, learning impairment probably from a childhood injury, don't want to be in jobs where they are going to be stressed all the time because they can't perform the tasks.

Others have been allowed by management to slip through the cracks, or due to personality conflicts, kept from being exposed to this skill or that which is needed for the new job.

I have little patience or sympathy for management that is too lazy to manage. It's incumbent on management to make sure that by the time an employee attains senority, said employee has the skills comensurate with the jobs his seniority qualifies her for.

There exists this idea that without seniority provisions, workers in a business would all of a sudden fall under some kind of Darwinian system where the most competent rose to the top.

Interesting hypothesis. I've yet to see evidence for it in the non-union management at my plant.

What happens in reality is that, yes, some competent people get their due. Most get run into the ground by thier managers, who have already run the "Peter Principle" to it's logical conclusion. I've seen some competent people side lined because their managers saw them as a threat.

Then there are the work force reductions. In the union, it goes by seniority. So it does in management too.

Only, in management, they look at who the senior people are, those close to expensive retirement benifits, and they are let go. Competent or no.

This isn't hypothetical.

This is what I've seen. And if the legal settlements didn't include gag orders, I'd have the court documents to prove it, too.

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As I mentioned above, I was a union rep in a time of great transition. Not only in terms of the jobs, but also in management philosophy. We went from a horrifically paternalistic quasi military discipline type plant to this current post modern warm and fuzzy style management. Some of that transition was due to an over all shift in business philosophy; I like to think a good part of it was due to the union leadership that learned how to focus on, and use the legal levers at our disposal to make paternalism obsolete.

The best education I ever got on the subject of women in the workplace came from a fellow student in an ergonomics course put on by the CAW. She asked how many women worked at our plant, and I told her none-- explaining that the work was too heavey even for some men, and that it would be unsafe for women to do most of the jobs. While I might have been correct, this rather astute woman told me something I'll never forget:

"If it's not safe for a woman to do, then chances are pretty good that it's unsafe for a man to do too."

And, professional ergonomic study after professional ergonomic study in our plant has born this out.

This sent me off on a crusade though. I mentioned to the plant chairman at the time that it was way past time we had women working in the plant. While I cannot claim credit for the work that was done to actually get to this point, I do think I started the ball rolling. And, in management meetings, I made sure they heard the footsteps coming, making comments about the situation whenever I got the chance. Management might have thought of them as "digs" against them.

I prefer to think of it more as a slow water torture kind of thing.

As it turned out, we did get women working in the plant.

This was back in the good ole days when we carried a huge metal tape - now as a female who lifted weights regularly in order to fly some fairly large and heavy planes I was more than capable of lugging that thing around but a number of the men insisted on carrying it for me, and paying for my lunches as well -- all lovely, courteous well brought up men - but then they turned around and decided they didnt want to work with me because they "had" to carry the chain, as well as their own equipment, and paying for my lunches was "getting expensive".

Trying to explain to these courteous dinosaurs they were being sexist and ruining my ability to become "part of the team" was hopeless -

Women were just not "treated like men" and thats the bottom line according to them.

I didnt take the job in order to be a "lady surveyors helper" I took it be a "surveyors helper".

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Having been a woman who dared to invade the male dominated world of surveying the biggest problem I encountered as a surveryors helper was the "courteous" male.

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Ha! I had a similar problem in my training on the railroad. The guys didn't want to let me work! Then they'd tease me about sitting around! The chivalry wore off when the rainy season hit, I'm happy to say, although they still hold doors for me. (Filthy Bastards.)

After working with them for a couple of years the biggest problems I have are the lack of toilet facilities (can't really pee off the side of the engine, can I?) and the lack of companionship. It's lonely being the only woman.

After that the only complaint I have is that men don't like to be with women who makes more money than them. Not a very legitimite beef, but I had to get it off my chest.

[ November 21, 2002: Message edited by: skadie ]

[ November 21, 2002: Message edited by: Michelle ]

We've come a long ways baby now we just got to make the guys realize we CAN do the job -

And as one poster said if aint fit for a woman it aint fit for a man either.

The interesting thing is that, putting aside a few things for a moment, have the same standards of acceptance for women as they do men. Basically, it comes down to how well a person gets along, and if they keep up with the work.

I've seen, and had many a chuckle over the "father knows best" type guys who go out of their way to make the job easier for women. I don't see it as much now as I did at first. But, as well intentioned as it might be, it surely does, as Kindred points out, make it difficult to for women to earn respect in the work place.

But back to the 'real jobs' thing, besides the demographics of the 'baby boom' delaying 'gen xers' entry into the work force, in manufacturing, jobs that would be opening up due to retirements and other causes are not in fact opening up due to automation.

Where we might be expecting early retirements to be creating employment, I'm not sure this is happening at all, nor will it perhaps, until people like myself, born at the tail end of the 'baby boom' start to retire.

I've seen it for myself, young people under-employed waiting for 'real jobs' to open up. It's like a whole generation being put on hold.

[ November 21, 2002: Message edited by: Tommy_Paine ]

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I've seen it for myself, young people under-employed waiting for 'real jobs' to open up. It's like a whole generation being put on hold.

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