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The white-collar class derided mass layoffs
among the blue-collar workers. It’s
about to feel their pain

Original Article

Posted By: Dreadnought, 1/17/2024 12:01:34 AM

In “The True Believer,” Eric Hoffer wrote, “Nothing is so unsettling to a social order as the presence of a mass of scribes without suitable employment and an acknowledged status.” We’re about to find out just how right he was. From the 1970s to roughly now, offshoring and automation gobbled up blue-collar factory-type jobs. Auto companies laid off workers by the thousands and sent factories to Canada and Mexico. In 1977, on what Salena Zito calls “the day that destroyed the working class,” Youngstown Sheet and Tube laid off 5,000 workers. Within months U.S. Steel had shut down 16 plants and Jones & Laughlin laid off further thousands. This went on for decades

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Reply 1 - Posted by: OhioNick 1/17/2024 2:37:15 AM (No. 1637963)
The auto industry has already perfected the process of building a car with robots and few actual human workers. It's going on right now in South America. Additionally, any outside firms that provide parts for these car companies are located adjacent to the auto plants in order to eliminate shipping costs. Unfortunately for the blue-collar workers in our country, this is the future of auto manufacturing.
5 people like this.

Reply 2 - Posted by: JimBob 1/17/2024 5:03:32 AM (No. 1637975)
I remember a period in the '70's or '80's when GM was closing plants and laying off workers, it seems incredible now, but I seem to recall layoffs of 100,000 at a time.
4 people like this.

Reply 3 - Posted by: Strike3 1/17/2024 7:53:07 AM (No. 1638043)
Being laid off used to be an incentive to getting another job when other positions opened up. The government "fixed" that by paying huge unemployment amounts so the idle workers could stay home indefinitely, thus correcting a problem usually caused by the government.
9 people like this.

Reply 4 - Posted by: MMC 1/17/2024 7:59:49 AM (No. 1638051)
1st hand knowledge on unemployment The max allowed in Michigan is 362 a week, for 20 weeks.. If you are living on 900 a week, paying for ca and house insurance etc.. and the sole earner in the home- you now meet Federal Poverty Income level- Which then means You qualify for Govt Assistance- Food Medicaid Emergency Relief So, maybe the intent of government is to create more dependency…which leads to more control..
11 people like this.

Reply 5 - Posted by: cor-vet 1/17/2024 9:10:47 AM (No. 1638127)
I personally would like to see a lot of the behind the scenes government employees, who actually write the regulations that cause many of these job losses, lose their jobs, with the much needed downsizing of the federal bureaucracy! They need to experience the feeling!
5 people like this.

Reply 6 - Posted by: sw penn 1/17/2024 9:22:50 AM (No. 1638137)
Learn to mop?
3 people like this.

Reply 7 - Posted by: WV.Hillbilly 1/17/2024 9:45:36 AM (No. 1638152)
"Well, the world needs ditch diggers too."
2 people like this.

Reply 8 - Posted by: crashnburn 1/17/2024 7:06:14 PM (No. 1638562)
I guess you could call me a white-collar worker. I'm a software engineer in Silicon Valley. It seems that what jobs companies don't ship overseas, they import mostly Asian workers to fill (especially Indians). Fortunately, I saved and invested, and had massive amounts of luck investing so I don't need to work, but I still want one last job. I feel sorry for the white male who isn't ready to retire but can't get work because Asian H1-Bs undercut him (and that happened to me) to the point he can't find work.
3 people like this.

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