Posted on 12/11/2014 3:45:29 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Frank Walsh still pays dues to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, but more than four years have passed since his name was called at the union hall where the few available jobs are distributed. Mr. Walsh, his wife and two children live on her part-time income and a small inheritance from his mother, which is running out.
Sitting in the food court at a mall near his Maryland home, he sees some of the restaurants are hiring. He says he can’t wait much longer to find a job. But he’s not ready yet.
“I’d work for them but they’re only willing to pay $10 an hour,” he said, pointing at a Chick-fil-A that probably pays most of its workers less than that. “I’m 49 with two kids — $10 just isn’t going to cut it.”
Working, in America, is in decline. The share of prime-age men — those 25 to 54 years old — who are not working has more than tripled since the late 1960s, to 16 percent. More recently, since the turn of the century, the share of women without paying jobs has been rising, too. The United States, which had one of the highest employment rates among developed nations as recently as 2000, has fallen toward the bottom of the list....
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Amen.
Mr. Walsh... If you are an experienced licensed electrician there is NO REASON you should have been sitting on your duff for 4 long years just waiting for the union to call. Methinks Mr Walsh has had a nice long vacation on Obamunemployment. I think there’s something Mr. Walsh just doesn’t want to tell us. I have been broke, lost my job, lost my house but I didn’t sit around for 4 years waiting for someone to call me on the phone and offer a job. I hit the pavement and called everyone I knew looking for work.
Her is living of Mommas inheritance and his wifey.
Thems the facts.
Ain’t globalism and foreign invasion fun!
I am shocked this article appeared in the NY Times. I would of expected some Jezebel Feminist writer celebrating how the White Male Patriarchy has been smashed.
$10 is better than $0.
Maryland "Freak State" PING!
But instead he just sits year after year in the union hall waiting for his number to be called.
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And votes DemocRAT, I am sure.
A guy this dumb should not be allowed around electricity.
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Excellent point!
Which is why the NYSlimes picked him to interview.
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Since it is the NYT, I wonder if “Frank Walsh” is actually a real human or a figment of the writer’s imagination.
Here’s something that doesn’t add up about Walsh’s story.
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As I commented to another poster, I am not convinced that our Frank Walsh is an actual person.
It really ticks me off when the electrons run through me rather than through the carefully designed circuits.
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LOL!
$10 is better than $0.
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Yep!
I tend to agree; there are lots of union carpenters, plumbers, electricians from Maryland and northern Virginia who’ve made a lot of money in recent years working on federally-funded projects in the D.C. area. Heck, Annapolis is less than 20 miles from Fort Meade, and there’s always something under construction at the base. Beyond that, outgoing Maryland governor Martin O’Malley spent tax revenue as quickly as he could collect it, and virtually all of those projects were union jobs. If Walsh didn’t want to drive to D.C., there should have been plenty of opportunities in Baltimore and even Annapolis.
As others have observed, Mr. Walsh may be one of those guys who was sent back to the union hall “early” because he was incompetent, or had the work ethic of a sloth. The other option, as you observe, is that Walsh is another creation of the NYT; somewhere, Jayson Blair must be smiling.
Someone at National Review or the Weekly Standard ought to contact Walsh’s local in Annapolis and see what their unemployment rate has been over the last four years.
60 years ago men would not have sat home and wondered at what point they would consider working.
I find this story pathetic.
Agreed.
Perhaps this story was appraised by the editor based on the Dan Rather scale of fake but accurate.
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