Take This Job And Ship It How Corporate Greed And Brain-Dead Politics Are Selling Out America

Chapter One A Star-spangled Rut A poignant story is told about the sorrowful days following President Roosevelt's death in 1945. In a long line of mourners waiting to pay their respects to the dead president lying in state at the U.S. Capitol was a fellow who had waited for hours. A reporter, who was writing a story about the outpouring of love for FDR, saw this workingman standing quietly, holding his hat in his hands, with tears in his eyes. The reporter, notebook in hand, asked, "Did you know President Roosevelt?' "No," the man said through his tears. "But he knew me." What a simple yet profound way of expressing that this was a president who truly cared about ordinary folks, about the working people of America. So, who knows America's workers today? Who is looking out for them now? When their jobs are shipped overseas, who stands up for the American worker? Who takes notice for example when the nine hundred Ohio workers lost their jobs because Huffy Bicycle Company decided to move those jobs to China, where they could pay Chinese workers thirty-three cents an hour to make bicycles? Did anybody know that on the last day of work, as they drove out of the plant parking lot, in a quiet but powerful message, each of the Huffy employees left a pair of shoes in their empty parking space. It was their way of telling the company, "You can move our jobs to China, but you're not going to be able to fill our shoes." So who knows those workers and millions like them? Our president? The Congress? Corporate executives? I don't think so. If this is a nation experiencing a crisis of confidenceand I believe it isit is because these days many American workers feel ignored, abandoned, and vulnerable. They feel so very alone because they know they are governed by the callously indifferent who not only don't "know them," but who really don't think workers matter much. These days we are told to suck it up and stop complaining. Things are going fine here in the United States. The president says so. So do a lot of economists, columnists, and business leaders. The world is flat, we're told. It's a good thing. Who could argue otherwise? "We're number one!" . . . "Our biggest export is wastepaper!" That's right. America's largest export (by volume) is now "wastepaper" mostly headed for China. And another big export of ours is good American jobs, also headed mostly to Asia. If you're thinking that sending wastepaper and American jobsmillions of themoverseas isn't exactly a sign of robust economic health, you're right! Moreover, we are ringing up a trade deficit of over $700 billion a year (highest in history). That means every single day we buy about $2 billion of foreign products more than we are able to sell to other countries. To pay for that, each day we sell some of our country to foreigners. It is a strategy I call "The Selling of America." And in this new global economy, no one is more profoundly affected than American workers. In 1970, the largest U.S. corporation was General Motors. Most people who went to work there stayed for all their working lives. They collectively bargained, were paid well, and received good retirement and health-care benefits. Today, the largest U.S. corporation is Wal-Mart. According to published reports, the average salaDorgan, Byron L. is the author of 'Take This Job And Ship It How Corporate Greed And Brain-Dead Politics Are Selling Out America', published 2006 under ISBN 9780312355227 and ISBN 031235522X.