Posted on 08/02/2004 5:34:00 PM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
LEWISTOWN - Miranda Frymyer waits in front of the Armed Forces Recruiting Center for the shuttle bus to drive her to boot camp. She seems neither happy nor sad, but resigned.
The 18-year-old, sporting a blue Grateful Dead teddy bear tattoo on her chest, is surrounded by her mother, her stepmother, her father, her sister, her boyfriend and several family friends, none of whom want her to join the Army.
"We're having this war," her mother, Lisa Courtney, says. "I do not want my daughter going. I'm here to cry."
For Frymyer, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan seem like a better option than the losing battle for decent jobs in Lewistown, where the population is falling, unemployment is among the highest in the state, and heroin is the escapist drug of choice among some of her peers.
"I want to make something out of my life," Frymyer says, crossing her arms. "There's nothing here."
On that, her mother agrees.
"I don't want her to be like me. I was a mom at 16, and I'm in a dead-end job," Courtney says, wearing a white T-shirt that carries the warning, "Staring won't make me like you more."
Even dead-end jobs are scarce in Lewistown, despite the fact fewer people are sticking around to apply for them.
Over four decades, the population in the borough -- the Mifflin County seat -- has slipped 29 percent, to 8,998 in 2000, from 12,640 in 1960. Mifflin County's unemployment rate jumped from an annual average of 4.5 percent in 2000 to 7.5 percent in 2003 and is hovering at more than 8 percent this year, well above the 3.5 percent rate in the Harrisburg region and the state average of 6.1 percent.
A series of plant closings over six months -- some due to the transfer of jobs to other countries -- has made a bad situation worse.
Series of closings:
Depending on who is talking, outsourcing is either a natural part of free trade in a global economy or a new way of describing the "great sucking sound" of U.S. jobs going abroad, as Ross Perot warned during his presidential bid in 1992. If Perot needs a vacant building from which to say "I told you so," Lewistown has plenty.
In February, Lear Corp. shut its Lewistown plant, which made automotive carpeting, leaving 308 employees out of work. Lear, which operates plants in 34 countries, transferred the work that was done at Lewistown to other places, primarily Canada. The company gave some of its employees the option of working at other Lear facilities, including plants in Carlisle and Virginia, but there were few takers.
The same month, Standard Steel, founded in 1795 and instrumental to the railroad industry in the 1800s, closed its ring mill, where locomotive wheels were made. One of 49 U.S. steel companies that have declared bankruptcy since 1997, Standard Steel struggles with overseas competition, and while it continues to operate in the Lewistown area, 109 workers lost their jobs at the ring mill.
Mann Edge Tool Co., an ax-and-hammer factory that opened in the late 1800s and employed as many as 350 people 20 years ago, closed its Water Street plant in September, idling the remaining 49 workers. Before the closing, the business was purchased by Delaware-based Collins Tool Co., a subsidiary of Truper Herramientas in Mexico.
Collins Tool continues to operate in the Mifflin County Industrial Development Corp. plaza, but the work once done at the ax forge plant on Water Street is done overseas.
Last November, Guardian Industries, a glass manufacturer, closed its Lewistown plant, laid off 69 workers and sent the jobs to Mexico.
No help nearby:
Neighboring counties offer little respite for Lewistown residents.
Six plants in Centre County and one in Huntingdon County closed during the past year, because of either foreign competition or the outsourcing of jobs to other countries, says Cynthia Spencer, counselor at Lewistown CareerLink. She says another plant in Lewistown may downsize this summer, when some of the 200 jobs will be sent to India.
Twice a week, a dozen Lewistown residents, many of whom worked at Lear and Mann Edge, drive an hour to Harrisburg to take taxpayer-financed retraining courses at Harrisburg Area Community College. There, they are learning how to repair heating and air-conditioning systems.
The courses and extended unemployment compensation are part of the Trade Adjustment Assistance benefits that the displaced workers receive from the state Department of Labor and Industry and the U.S. Department of Labor.
The benefits, awarded to workers who lose their jobs as a result of outsourcing and international trade, do little to mask the damage to this once-thriving manufacturing town.
"Lewistown is decimated," says Bill Thompson, an instructor at HACC's Harrisburg campus. "Businesses are shutting down or cutting back."
Making ends meet:
When not commuting and learning, the students -- mostly middle-age white men with families to support -- try to make ends meet by painting houses, fixing cars, cutting grass and doing other odd jobs, Thompson says.
And on the rare occasion when full-time jobs open, a feeding frenzy ensues. At a recent daylong job fair at Trinity Packaging in Lewistown, more than 120 people showed up on a 90-degree weekday to apply for 35 jobs.
"We had to start turning people away at 5:30, so I'm sure there would have been more," says Lisa Woodruff, human resources manager at Trinity, where workers stuff plastic bags into boxes. "Our job fairs usually attract 50 to 60 [applicants], tops."
One applicant, Austin Shank, 19, went to the job fair because he's tired of working at Dairy Queen near his home in Reedsville. Of the eight children in the Shank family, three work for the ice cream chain, says Austin's mother, Martha Shank, as she sits on Trinity's front lawn and watches her son fill out his application.
"I have another son who's been looking for a job for two years, and he has a master's degree," Martha Shank says. "The jobs he's looking for ain't here. He's thinking of going into the Navy."
Austin is thinking of someplace other than Lewistown.
"If I can get a good enough job somewhere, I'll leave," he says.
Many people who get jobs at Trinity don't stay long, says Eric Goss, 28, who has worked at the plant for five years.
"A lot of people don't last more than a couple of hours," Goss says during a break. "Most don't last more than a week. It's noisy, and it's 20 degrees hotter than it is outside. With 100 percent humidity."
Goss says he has little choice but to weather the conditions. He's paid at top scale, $12.13 an hour, or $25,200 a year.
"Ain't too bad," Goss says. "Can't find anything else."
That's essentially the same reason Nicholas Seaholtz, 26, is filling out his application in his parked car. He drove to the job fair with his girlfriend, Ashley Druckemiller, 18, from their nearby hometown of Milroy. They left their infant son, Cole, in the care of his grandparents.
"I'll take whatever I can get, really," Seaholtz says. "It really doesn't matter as long as I can get a job."
Seaholtz says he has applied at 15 places since December, when he lost his job as a heavy-equipment operator.
"I think it's about time to move out of this state," he says. "Go out West. Down South. That's what it's coming to."
Rob Postal, president of the Mifflin County Industrial Development Corp., shares Seaholtz's frustration.
"I can understand the long-term benefit of outsourcing," Postal says. "But we don't have an adjustment for the short-term problems that are occurring. I understand that cheaper labor helps companies, but short-term, we're hurting."
Unlike other parts of Pennsylvania, including Harrisburg, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, "we don't have the service and government jobs to pick up the slack from the manufacturing losses," Postal says. "We're not replacing these jobs lost in manufacturing with other jobs. Those jobs that do come, the wages are not going to be the same."
Feeling the pain:
Other businesses in town are experiencing the trickle-down effect of outsourcing, consolidation and downsizing.
Revenue at Lewistown Florist is down 20 percent from a year ago, owner Mark Lawson says. He describes the current economic slump as the worst he's seen in the 24 years he has run the store.
"It's a lack of jobs," Lawson says. "People have no money to spend, and it's not getting better. Everybody feels it."
The opening of a Wal-Mart just outside Lewistown a decade ago didn't help matters, Lawson says, because it "also took business away" from downtown merchants.
"We're getting by," Lawson says while standing behind the counter of his shop, where he's surrounded by colorful flower arrangements and a caged bird but no customers. "Hopefully, something will turn around here."
Business is only slightly better at Henry's Subs & Suds, where two patrons sip beers in the otherwise empty bar.
"It's been like this for a while now," bartender Denise Fultz says. "Every week it gets worse. There's nothing in this town, and the people who are here don't have money."
Every once in awhile, road-construction crews who live outside of Lewistown stop in for beers after working on the highway widening project at routes 322 and 22.
Those workers brighten the atmosphere, Fultz says. "They come in, carry on and talk about sex."
When local residents do stop in, the conversations are "basically about how bad it sucks here," she says.
Gerald Hummel, president of the Greater Lewistown Corp., sees the town as half-full, not half-empty. He points to the highway expansion and the presence of Wal-Mart, or "Wally World," as the locals call it, as examples of growth, not decay, and says the region's access to rail service can attract business.
"The core stuff is here," Hummel says. "What isn't here is anybody's attention" to the area's potential.
Hummel's office is one of several county offices in the space formerly occupied by a Danks department store, which closed eight years ago. The 54,000-square-foot building had been vacant until four years ago.
The recent spate of plant closings follows years of other departures. Rite Aid moved out of town, as did three discount stores -- Murphy's, Kresge's and McCrory's. The Bon-Ton is still in town, Hummel says with pride.
But Hummel doesn't try to hide the obvious, that losses outweigh the gains in Lewistown. He escorts a visitor outside and glances across the parking lot at the latest reminder of that imbalance, the idled Mann Edge Tool building.
"What's happened here has taken place over so many years, it does not strike anyone as being dramatic," he says.
Plenty of volunteers:
Back at the recruiting center, Army Sgt. Joshua Ochs, 31, has no trouble finding volunteers, despite the rising death toll in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"They know we're capable of doing more for them than Lewistown can," Ochs says while waiting with his latest recruits for the shuttle bus.
Some people join because "they just want to do their part" for the country, says Ochs, who speaks in short, crisp sentences and wears a closely cropped crewcut. Others join because "there's nothing to do in this town," he says.
The shuttle pulls up, and Frymyer lingers in a long group hug with her family members, who are crying.
Ochs, standing to the side, ends the goodbyes.
"Let's go," he says.
As Frymyer rides off to boot camp, her stepsister, Tabitha Campbell, 13, issues a warning to no one in particular.
"If she gets hurt over there," she says, "we'll go over and nuke 'em."
My husband, from Wellsboro, NE butt of the Poconos, joined the Army and got the hell out 40 years ago. It takes effort to find a better life.
No matter which we cut it (whether its EPA rules that caused the job losses or NAFTA), this area is very ripe for John Kerry's message.
I don't profess to have the economic answer for cities like Lewistown but in many ways, this area could be considered the American heartland, an area you wouldn't think susceptible to Kerry's ideas.
If Bush loses Pennsylvania, it'll likely be because of cities like Lewistown.
PA will never change its evil ways until it gets rid of the patronage system that is endemic to all the NE.
I left since I can live on the lake and have 400 feet of lakefront that we own for what it costs for a house on the T tracks in Mt. Lebanon---my last digs. Give me neighbors who are 500 feet away and no GD trolleys clanging by ever five minutes.
Exactly. So name one time, one place, one country or one example where a "controlled" economy outperformed free enterprise?
(We await your answer with rapt attention and excitement.)
Color PA Blue. I'll buy you lunch if I am wrong.
This article is serious business for any who are concerned about GWB's re-election. Pennsylvania had been described as a Republican "T" if you make a red county-blue county map. The northern tier counties and the midstate form the "T". Most times the "T" cannot quite make up for the RAT strongholds of Philly and Pittsburgh.
Lewistown is in the heart of Bush country but when people are hurting economically the quick fix pocketbook issues are what grab them. And an exodus from the "T" doesn't gurantee that the blues counties will become more balanced.
trade is "controlled" by government, its a legitimate function of government. this mythical free market is not god given. immigration, allowing H1B visas holder to come into the country to work at 60% the prevailing wage - its also government controlled, unless you are arguing for a totally open border for labor, for people from all over the world, into the US market.
You missed the entire point of my post. Without those Filipino rubber plantation workers ("offshore jobs," mind you) the U.S. auto industry wouldn't have existed -- at least not as large as it was.
Also, the American mineworkers were able to afford cars in a fairly short period of time.
Yes, when many of their jobs were lost to automation. And when these mines started producing raw materials that were used for things other than automobiles that these mine workers could not afford to buy -- like military hardware, large maritime vessels, etc.
Of course the boss will always have a higher standard of living than the worker.
That goes without saying. But I've got news for you -- the customer will always have a higher standard of living, too. If you look at almost any financial transaction involving a "producer" and a "customer," the producer will always have a lower standard of living than the customer unless government intervention alters that grim reality (farm subsidies are a good example of this).
That's a fairly good description.
Snakehead Carville put it more bluntly: "Pennsylvania is Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with Alabama in between."
Lewistown is in the "Alabama" portion.
If Lewistown is hurting, Dubya's chances go down.
Times have changed. Now anyone with a Masters in computer sciences or mechanical engineering, a BA in chemistry, A good position in manufacturing, warehousing, etc are all losing their jobs. This is not a matter of simple propaganda. These stories are popping up in every paper in america - not just the liberal rags, conservative papers are writing their share of them as well. What the young lady on the Bush campaign said today is nothing compared to what free traders have said even on this thread and the knee jerk reaction was - fire her because she's damaged the President's campaign image. Damaged it by showing the public the face and reality of how free traders talk about and treat americans. And just as I have predicted long ago.
My home town has seen so many Delphi Automotive plant closings in the last 8-10 years it isn't funny. We used to be called little detroit. Between the dozen or so Delco Electronics facilities, Chrysler, the steel and plate glass plants, etc.. Most of them are closed now - not outmoded or un-needed, just shipped to Mexico and elsewhere out of country. We have a few remaining delphi facilities here though another was closed in the last month and shipped to mexico machine by machine, bolt by bolt. The only thing left marking what was at the site is an empty building and a trespass at your own risk sign.
That is where Kokomo Indiana is heading. City of Firsts, Home of Elwood Haynes, is heading for Ghost town status. This isn't an isolated incident. This is the story of countless towns all over the US. The price of globalization and greed. Fire the girl on the campaign and fire yourselves. This party doesn't need this hanging around it's neck and it's time for you guys to stop raping America and trying to hide from the public. That girl has done more to help straighten this party out with one honest statement than free traders can to ruin it with their propaganda. I don't even know what she looks like right now and I'd like to kiss her because it's woken some people up here and silenced some of the free traders.
Oh, agreed. I will buy you lunch as well if PA goes Red.
What is all the more alarming is that the largest employer in that region is the State University System--PSU at State College. Not exactly a conservative bastion. The folks migrating in don't share the values of the folks outsourced into exile.
Have the voters in France and Germany become any less liberal when their governments "did something" to protect their jobs? Absolutely not.
Doctor-Patient Lawyer-Client Artist Fan
If the issue is the country's economic future, then you answer the question. What polutants will you tolerate in order to have jobs?
The point is, there is a balance between the two, and right now, we've gone off the deep end "protecting the environment" (read, punishing producers) with no concern for workers jobs.
See: Loggers
Well Penn State certainly has its share of high-profile liberal idiocy.
Nevertheless, it is still more conservative than many comparable university communities.
Afterall, Paterno Gets Four-Year Contract Extension
Face it, you just can't get much more conservative than that!
Doctor-Patient really doesn't apply, since very few doctors are paid directly by their patients. Their "customers" are basically insurance companies, not patients.
Lawyer-Client is an interesting one, but I would make the case that the very nature of this relationship is such that it doesn't really meet the requirements of a normal business transaction. For one thing, most lawyers today operate in a legal system that is little more than a government racket driven by lawyers themselves. In addition, most people who hire lawyers are willing to drive themselves into bankruptcy if their legal problem is serious.
Artist-Fan is certainly worthy of consideration, but I'd have to consider some specific examples to see if there is any merit to this. Most famous artists were damn near broke and never made much money on their work while they were alive.
that simply a race to the bottom - in order to remain competitive for jobs, our environmental, labor, and living standards should fall to the lowest level in the international community. it won't work. you can't have balance when you compete with third world nations who are willing to move to the absolute lowest possible level.
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