
With His Job Gone, an Autoworker Wonders, ‘What Am I as a Man?’ - MagicPropmaker
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/27/us/auto-worker-jobs-lost.html
======
manfredo
I think the most important thing here is the difference in outlook. The people
in this story lived their lives with the assumption that they will live the
same lives as their parents. This hasn't been true since the industrial
revolution (>80% of people working in agriculture shrunk to ~2%). This reminds
me of British coal-workers striking over layoffs, even though they would
receive the same paycheck for life if they were laid off. Their rationale is
that they were striking for their _children 's_ future jobs in the coal mine.
That just struck me as depressing, that parents just assumed that their kids'
lot in lives would be a coal miner just like them. Maybe this is the immigrant
mentality that people talk about, but

> Cheering the deal might check a political box for the president, but getting
> hired by the buyer would probably mean making $11 an hour, he said, a wage
> he last made in his early 20s. “It would be back to square one after 25
> years in the plant,” he said.

Rick seems to be following the same line of thinking. The notion of working in
a different industry just doesn't seem to be considered.

This is probably one of the best times in recent history to start looking for
a job. Unemployment is at record lows, and growth is fairly strong. I think
the biggest issue here isn't layoffs, it's people putting their sense of
identity into their job instead of viewing it as a transaction. 80% of
employees at the beginning of the 20th century worked in industries that are
either non-existent or drastically smaller by the end of the 20th century. I
see no reason why we should expect the 21st century to be any different.
Rick's assumption that he would work in the same industry as his father for
the entirety of his life seems to be the biggest culprit here, not NAFTA.

~~~
_bxg1
Part of it is an identity thing, part of it is an age thing, but part of it
too is a location thing. When plants like this out in the literal middle-of-
nowhere close, entire towns die. You might suggest that people just move, but
what if they have a mortgage on a house that's suddenly worthless? And that's
not even factoring in the "soft" costs of losing your community and possibly
moving away from family. Given the U.S.'s aversion to social welfare, people
end up stuck without any options.

~~~
manfredo
Entire towns disappearing is a normal state of affairs.

> Hundreds of workers have already transferred. His nephew packed up his
> family and moved to Flint. The alternative, working on natural gas wells in
> Pennsylvania, paid him $13 an hour, about half what he was making at G.M.

> You might suggest that people just move, but what if they have a mortgage on
> a house that's suddenly worthless?

Then he should blame his situation on his own gamble on real-estate
speculation, and not NAFTA.

> And that's not even factoring in the "soft" costs of losing your community
> and possibly moving away from family.

My whole point is, the emphasis on these "soft" factors are what's holding him
back. When you move, you don't "lose" community, you swap them out for a
different one. Moving away from family may be challenging, but it's probably
worse to not have a job.

> Given the U.S.'s aversion to social welfare, people end up stuck without any
> options.

I don't think lack of welfare is an issue here:

> G.M. is a lifeline for Mr. Marsh, too. It will pay him a pension, a rare
> thing in today’s economy. He may have given up raises, but he gets a share
> of the company’s profits — last year, about $10,000. Under the union
> contract, he gets payments to supplement his unemployment check, and his
> family still has health insurance

Ohio unemployment benefits pay half of weekly wages up to $424. Rick would be
receiving $424 if $26 per hour was his wages while he was employed. So he's
getting $22,000 per year in unemployment plus $10,000 from his GM pension on
top of that. Is getting $32,000 per year in pension and unemployment benefits
considered bad welfare? He's getting about 2/3 of his income while he was
employed in unemployment benefits. Probably more if you take taxes into
account. And health insurance. And the "payments to supplement his
unemployment check" that the article doesn't explain in detail.

There's a good chance that abundant welfare _is_ why he isn't looking for
work. If he took the $13 and hour job in Pennsylvania he may lose more in
benefits than he'd be gaining in wages. I wouldn't blame him if this were the
case, but the fact that our welfare system is actively discouraging people
from seeking employment is the messed up part of this situation. Not the fact
that manufacturing jobs are moving because of globalization.

~~~
klipklop
>Then he should blame his situation on his own gamble on real-estate
speculation, and not NAFTA.

Not everything is SV property greed. What if this person bought the home so he
could just have a place to live? Not everybody buys a home with the intention
of making money. Some just want a stable home for their kids.

> My whole point is, the emphasis on these "soft" factors are what's holding
> him back. When you move, you don't "lose" community, you swap them out for a
> different one. Moving away from family may be challenging, but it's probably
> worse to not have a job.

In general your family is always better than a job. When you are on your death
bed I can guarantee you that your boss won't be there holding your hand.

> I wouldn't blame him if this were the case, but the fact that our welfare
> system is actively discouraging people from seeking employment is the messed
> up part of this situation.

Then how do you explain our current low unemployment numbers? If anything it
appears working is preferred over our welfare system. Many people want purpose
and want to work.

~~~
manfredo
> Not everything is SV property greed. What if this person bought the home so
> he could just have a place to live? Not everybody buys a home with the
> intention of making money. Some just want a stable home for their kids.

If you're buying a home on credit, then you're speculating on real estate.
Whether or not your intent is to turn a profit is besides the point. If
someone wants a home, then can rent or buy a home that they can afford with
cash. You don't need to buy a house on credit to find a home.

> In general your family is always better than a job. When you are on your
> death bed I can guarantee you that your boss won't be there holding your
> hand.

If you don't have a job then it's hard to provide a good life for your family.
You won't have anyone holding your hand on your deathbed if you can't provide
for you family and your wife and kids have to leave you to find a man that
can. The strain of having to move away from cousins, aunts, etc. is
drastically less than not having a job - at least in my view of things. The
example in the article isn't even moving very far - literally the neighboring
state. Rick and his family could easily see their extended family on the
holidays if they wanted to.

> Then how do you explain our current low unemployment numbers? If anything it
> appears working is preferred over our welfare system. Many people want
> purpose and want to work.

Unemployment tracks people who are looking for work but cannot find a job. If
people stop looking for work, then they are no longer counted as unemployed.
This is consistent with the fact that we're seeing low unemployment but also
lower labor participation rates. Granted, lower labor participation is at
least in part due to other factors like an ageing population.

------
twblalock
Stories like this demonstrate that our idea of the "middle class" is a postwar
anomaly. People ask why the middle class is shrinking, but really we should be
asking why such a large middle class ever existed. It was never normal until
after WWII.

In the postwar period, American manufacturing had far less competition than it
does now. Most other industrialized countries were recovering from the war,
foreign cars did not fit American consumer preferences, and China was locked
into a decades-long cycle of self-destruction. Automation technology wasn't
very good, so there were tons of factory jobs. All of that has now changed.

This man's job, and the other jobs like it, only existed because of historical
circumstances that cannot be replicated. Politicians might be able to save
some manufacturing jobs, but we will never have nearly as many as we did
before.

I feel sorry for this man, because jobs like his aren't coming back, and
because he is being lied to by politicians who say those jobs can be saved.

It's possible that what we are now seeing is the end of a historical and
economic anomaly: a mass middle class. Our politics is not handling it well.

~~~
_bxg1
Much of Europe still has a strong middle-class. People there can work service
jobs and live comfortably. The specific industries that created factory jobs
may be in inevitable decline, but the middle-class itself is not. That problem
is a political one.

History has shown time and again that capitalism left to its own devices does
not create a middle-class. As long as Americans keep waiting for it to do so,
the middle-class will keep shrinking. Until we get a new New Deal, this trend
will not change.

Ironically, many of the people voting for deregulation and small-government
are the ones being hurt the most by those things.

~~~
twblalock
The rise of populism across Europe, including Brexit, has the same root cause
as the rise of populism in America: people believing they have been left
behind by the global economy and abandoned by mainstream politicians.

~~~
repolfx
Abandoned by mainstream politicians yes, that's the definition of populism
(politicians who position themselves against a general 'elite').

Left behind by the global economy, no, there's no evidence of that. It's a New
York Times trope designed to make liberal readers feel superior. Polls showed
quite clearly that Brexit was motivated by (a) immigration levels and (b)
sovereignty, but these are hard to separate because if the UK was self-ruling
and the political elite were more in touch with the population, immigration
levels would have been kept lower a long time ago and the issue would never
have become as neuralgic. People who are angry over ultra-high immigration
levels are both annoyed at the quantity but also annoyed at being ignored and
told to shut up about it by out of touch politicians.

In particular, there isn't much discussion of trade war in the UK, nor the
rest of Europe.

------
csours
Disclaimer up front: I work for GM, and previously worked in a plant. Any
opinions are my own.

Besides all the larger questions of politics and automation, it really awesome
to be part of a team that builds 1000 vehicles a day. Seeing them roll off the
end of the line never stops being cool. In IT, your project may last for
months and you only see small changes happen slowly over time. In the plant
you see parts come together into a complete vehicle over the course of a day.

In IT, if a site or service is down, you know it's a problem, but in
manufacturing if the line stops you can see hundreds of people just sitting
there.

\---

People talk about automation like it's new. Automakers have been automating
from the very beginning. Designing and building cars is a big job. Designing
and building the machine that builds the cars is also a big job. The machine
that builds the cars is made of suppliers, trucks, railroads, robots,
conveyors, information systems, and yes, people.

Line workers look like people to you and me, and they certainly are people;
but to the machine that builds cars they look like extremely capable but
slightly inconsistent robots.

~~~
njepa
You simply shouldn't believe the talk about automation. Most people don't even
know what they are talking about. What do people think Chinese workers do? Mr.
Marsh is right, it is about trade. If you can make something where workers are
paid peanuts and have little, throughout the entire supply chain, without any
penalties why wouldn't you? (except the obvious moral implications and long
term effects).

What people really don't get is that hyper-automation, when you barely need
workers at all, isn't going to come from the West. As we soon don't have
anything to automate anymore. Most people here, including most engineers, are
in the service sector.

~~~
csours
Automation isn't all or nothing. It's a progression. That's what I was trying
to say. Automation began with the assembly line, interchangeable (uniform)
parts, and specifications.

------
habosa
The comments section on this article makes me sad to be a part of the HN
community.

Show some empathy for a man who lost the best thing he ever had. He isn't
asking for the world, actually in the article he didn't ask for anything. He
was content to make $25 an hour forever and spend it on his family's health
and happiness. That's a reasonable thing to want from life in America. Nit
picking the particulars of his case isn't useful.

If you say "just move" or "get a new job" or "shoulda seen it coming" consider
what you'd feel like if you lost your job of 2+ decades and that job had not
helped you develop other marketable skills.

Not every person can have a high-skilled and transferable job like a software
engineer.

~~~
xemdetia
I think the part that makes it hard to emphasize with this case rather than
others (someone who became disabled and is unable to work and can't get social
services, their work has been not fruitful enough for economic migration, or
any of the other regular cases that pop up on HN that do draw out empathy). At
what point do you understand the job is no longer secure? I feel like GM
particularly has been such a popular dead horse to beat this article seems
weird. 2008 financial crisis with the bailouts? The thousands of newspaper
articles? When the majority of parts are made by secondary parties instead of
GM? The constant layoffs and other plant closures?

I feel there is at least a minimum of 15 years of warning signs that the
average person on the assembly line is going to get cut eventually and at
least 8-9 announced layoffs that did just that. In that article he explicit
references watching other plants suffer the same fate he later did. I have no
idea how someone in his position would feel their job is secure other than
blind faith, especially because the white collar jobs have been cut just as
much as the blue collar ones at the auto manufacturers. He also seems to have
actual skills (article references working in the paint shop) compared to
others that he might not be quantifying accurately and I hope that he's able
to figure that out after looking back on his tenure.

The only thing I feel is something I can emphasize with in this article is the
part about feeling trapped in the local health care network that makes it not
as feasible to do any sort of economic migration at the risk of not being able
to recover the critical health services that they would have lost. If this was
the primary point of the article I feel it would resonate better.

------
bbulkow
Very interesting article. I see someone who won the lottery. They have built a
huge house and family, based on the single skill of showing up for work, and
having the right father. While this happens, this person thinks it is thier
right, and they will fight politically with every ounce, wrecking whatever
institutions and future health of the political system, to keep the privleges
they inherited. No sense of altruism or giving back, just keeping what is
theirs, justified as there is a child invoked.

The profile is very insightful, but depressing, as how can we have anything
but a selfish fight of selfish people, is that what democracy devolves to?

~~~
dredmorbius
What lotteries might you have won?

~~~
crooked-v
I feel like you're trying to reach for some sort of 'gotcha' here, but there
isn't one. The parent comment's point is that people should be aware of when
they've gotten lucky and be able to engage with the world when that luck
finally runs out (or, at least, engage with politics that can realistically
preserve some of that luck).

~~~
dredmorbius
We've all won considerable lotteries just in being alive. One out of 100
million sperm, avoiding perinatal death, a nurturing family, household,
community, country, "choosing the right parents", a locally advantageous
ethnic or tribal status, well-functioning social institutions (especially
healthcare, education, general safety, law and justice, sanitation and
infrastructure, environmental protections, clean water, safe food0, an
encouraging relative, neighbour, teacher, mentor, or boss (vs. the opposite),
a healthy or growing economy, personal talent, temperament, or skill,
happening to get interested in a hot topic or subject, access to labour
markets, access to entrepreneurial markets, suportive labour, professional, or
entrepreneurial institutions, a social safety net, physical appearance, mental
health.

These and many other factors have a high element of luck. Absence of any one
can prove a tremendous (though not _necessarily_ unsurmountable) handicap.

But, and this is key: dashed expectations, _even where born of a lottery_ ,
can become huge personal _and societal_ problems. The stages and processes of
grief: denial, bargaining, anger, depression, acceptence, are born from a
dramatic shear in expectations.[1] (Differences across social groups, as in
racism, are a related phenomenon, though different in that it is distenctions
among- rather than within-groups but over time, that are involved.) Writ large
over society such disapointments can be exceedingly potent forces,
particularly politically.

Discover your own lottery card(s) overpromised and underdelivered, you'll
likely feel similarly.

The exectations set up through cultural mythos can prove to have a tremendous
downside debt of ther own; "rugged individualsm", "self-sufficiency",
"meritocracy", "American dream", "technological progress", "free markets",
"manifest destiny", "self-made (wo)man", etc. All of these have fascinating,
if not widely known, ideological foundations. And historical literature on
each often shown sharp, if buried, contemporary criticism.

________________________________

Notes:

1\. Kübler-Ross's initial research is notable. The precipitating event wasn't
loss of a loved one, but notification of the _subject 's_ own imminent
mortality. A dramatic shift in worldview.

------
dfxm12
Just wondering, how common is it to define yourself as your job? My job is as
boring and globally pointless as making cars. I'm not going to be so
presumptuous as to claim to have an answer to such a philosophical question of
what it means to be a man, but I do know "having the same job in perpetuity"
would be relatively low on the list.

I might even think the reliance on politicians, or belief in their obvious
lies about such situations as decidedly _childish_.

~~~
temp99990
Increasingly very common? Without religion and people going unmarried/without
kids, your career has become the thing that you pay more attention to.

I don’t agree with it at all, mostly because too often a job looks like a
toxic relationship more than anything else, meaning you as an employee are
expected to be fully emotionally invested in your work, while at the same time
your company can fire you in the blink of an eye and not think twice about it.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
I don't identify with my job, but absolutely with my profession. I'm a
developer. Given the extreme level of specialization one needs to reach any
heights in a profession, you kind of need to commit and go.

------
NeoBasilisk
It is depressing to hear from people in the comments that they think a viable
solution is to just abandon entire regions of the country. Yes, let's just
pack everyone into NY, SF, LA, and Chicago.

------
melling
Automation, offshoring, and foreign competition have been happening for
several decades. GM used to produce half the cars in the US. It’s 2019, not
1989!

[https://knoema.com/infographics/floslle/top-vehicle-
manufact...](https://knoema.com/infographics/floslle/top-vehicle-
manufacturers-in-the-us-market-1961-2016)

~~~
nihonde
Not to mention that they got beat into the dirt on price _and_ quality.

If you want to be respected (as a “man” or whatever), you’ve got to earn it,
and sometimes your ability to do so is a team effort.

The flip side of this story is the intense grind and self-sacrifice in places
like Nagoya, Japan, where auto workers have something to be proud of, but are
always aware of how tenuous their future is.

------
blunte
One of the things that makes a (hu)man is the ability to learn. So what a
"man" is after losing one job or career is a person who can learn something
new and do something else. That doesn't solve short-medium term financial
challenges, but I find it hard to accept that one's life is over if their
primary job ends.

------
1024core
We need a jobs retraining program that people like him can avail of. And
companies who move jobs overseas must be made to pay for retraining these
folks for other jobs. They shouldn't be allowed to just pull up stakes and
move out without some repercussions.

~~~
merpnderp
If only these retraining programs ever showed much success. Finding real
livelihoods for people who's industries have disappeared is a stubborn
intractable problem.

------
sdegutis
> Rick Marsh worked in the car plant in Lordstown his entire life. Now that
> job is gone. What does that mean for his politics?

That's one heck of a bait-and-switch. The concept of "whence is my inherent
worth or intrinsic value" is way more interesting than "how does automation
affect my politics."

~~~
gnode
In my mind the two are closely related. There is a political school of thought
that people's value is to each other, and that people's needs can be fulfilled
by commerce. Automation frustrates this concept by removing our needs to rely
on human labour.

~~~
sdegutis
If people's needs can be fulfilled by commerce then the poor are doomed and
always have been. But people who have voluntarily chosen poverty such as
Francis of Assisi and Ignatius of Loyola have shown that that's simply not
true, and that commerce, while a necessary part of life, is not the
fulfillment of our needs, nor are politics.

~~~
b_tterc_p
Did Ignatius of Loyola have two kids and a wife to feed?

~~~
sdegutis
I get what you're saying. I also have a wife and 6 kids to feed, and it's not
easy to be low income. But I've never found my involvement or awareness of
politics to in any way help me with that goal, however I have found studying
and applying philosophical principles to my life to improve our quality of
life significantly, despite being near the poverty line (honestly not sure
which side of it we're on).

------
erik_landerholm
I’ve lived in 3 different states and 4 different places for work, in 5
different industries in the last 15 years, while having 4, now 5 kids. It’s
not something everyone can do, but it’s not impossible. I have no idea why
anyone would care so much to stay in a specific place and work in a specific
industry.

Obviously, if you have sick family or other challenges I get it. I’m assuming
able bodied and normal ties to places and things.

~~~
sithadmin
>I have no idea why anyone would care so much to stay in a specific place and
work in a specific industry.

You're the unusual case here: the vast majority of folks in the US end up
living within a stone's throw of wherever they were born. And you'd be crazy
to deny that there are many legitimate reasons to do so: Deep local social
networks and family ties? Long-term investments in housing or other local
property? Rearing children in a stable environment? Niche subject-matter
experience and expertise in a trade that isn't necessarily as portable as
digital skills are? Belonging to a particular local subculture that doesn't
necessarily exist elsewhere?

