This article makes no sense. Terrible management, but everyone in town wanted to work there... 9/11 caused a drop in knife sales... An entire town being supported by a 250 employee shop... No raises in 3 years, but people begging for the jobs anyway. Everyone wants to WALK to work... Evil management docks employees who are late, even though they took a cab to work...
Sounds like a one-size-fits-all whine against business. I wonder what solutions these workers would have suggested. Better healthcare and more vacation I would imagine.
To get an idea about how far back this has been a problem, just go back and watch the movie It's a Wonderful Life again. At one point in the movie, George Bailey (James Stewart) points out that half the town of Bedford Falls has been out of work since the tool & die factory closed -- and that movie was set in the mid-1940s!
The 9/11 angle is really bizarre, though. Does anyone really believe that the sale of knives has declined in the last few years simply because nobody is allowed to carry them on airplanes??