Job security is dead in America, and the "American Dream" is on life support, with the Tea Party and their rich backers ready to pull the plug. Workers are considered expendable and paid peanuts for dangerous, backbreaking work. Those that dare complain are made examples of, and find themselves suddenly broke and unemployed.
When I tell people this is my 4th year in school, they always mention graduation. "It must be great to be almost done!" But I'm not almost done. My major is Civil Engineering, a 5-year program even on the recommended curriculum, which is a grueling, expensive, nearly unrealistic schedule of 17-19 credits per semester plus summer classes. And on my more realistic schedule of 15-16 credits with a job on the side, I'm on the home stretch, but by no means "almost done". When I finally get my degree, there's no guarantee I'll get that great well-paying job I'm looking for, So how did I go from a factory worker and high-school dropout to a 30-year old college student?
A dangerous industry
Rewind 4 years, to a different time, spring and summer 2007. I was doing pretty good for someone without a high school diploma. I was union steward for the night shift at the old steel factory, cutting armor plate and railroad parts. I would do the math for the guys on my shift, showing them that their paltry 10-cent raises didn't even come close to keeping up with the rising cost of living. Contract negotiations were coming up in six months, and I told them we could get something better. $8.50 to $11.00 an hour just wasn't enough for such a dangerous job. One or two guys died each year working with steel in the various shops in the Cleveland area, and I had recovered from a serious accident that happened two years prior which broke both my feet and left me in a wheelchair for a while. All the old-timers on the day shift had some battlescars from 10, 20 or more years there, and were grandfathered in to higher pay rates and 6 weeks of vacation time from some mythical time when the union was stronger.
Safety around the shop was getting bad. The cranes were in disrepair, much of the equipment was worn and dangerous. Leaky roofs would produce puddles that submerged potentially lethal 240V electrical conduits. The company wasn't too happy when I told the guys not to pick up a 23-ton 4-inch thick steel plate with a 20-ton crane, which could have had deadly consequences. We only knew it was too heavy because we calculated the weight based on the dimensions of the plate, I insisted we do that before proceeding. The company was always asking us to do unsafe things, we filed several grievances, and things were coming to a head.
The Tinman's trap and the Cowardly Lion
They hired a new Head-Hunter plant manager, The Tinman, who was also the mastermind behind this discriminatory firing I diaried about previously. He was always breathing down my neck. They put a known snitch, The Scarecrow, as the new night foreman for "training" purposes. I should have known I was the Tinman's next target, that he wanted me out of the way before contract negotiations and that The Scarecrow was just there to watch me. But I walked right into his trap. I took a few pictures of safety problems before filing a new grievance about faulty equipment, and the next day the Scarecrow met me at the door and told me I was fired.
inb4 "You should have gotten permission" or "That's not legal to take pictures" or whatever, I have no regrets, and I stand by what I did. This was dangerous work, someone could have died. When I became steward I knew that I would have to put my union brothers before myself, even if it meant losing my job. The guys said I'd be back, but I had a bad feeling.
The main union rep, The Lion, refused back me up, and at the hearing at which I was supposed to get my job back he told me I should apologize and pretty much beg for my job back. I wasn't sorry at all for standing up for the guys on my shift, but I trusted The Lion, so I did what he said. There was a hearing, at which the Lion tore me apart. He said some things like he never should have put a steward on the nightshift, and completely threw me under the bus. I feigned remorse hoping that this whole thing could be reconciled. A few weeks later the company said I was still fired, and The Lion stopped returning my phone calls. He betrayed my trust and showed where his loyalty really was.
"Steel Rat" to number cruncher.
The guys at the shop had said all along I didn't belong there, that I wasn't a career 'Steel Rat'. I could do the job, but didn't have the 'nerves of steel' and lack of fear that the other guys did. Moving plate on an overhead crane as it flapped like a giant 24-foot steel bird above me really did scare me, and sometimes it showed. But I taught myself how to manually program my machine, would fix the computers to keep things running when The Scarecrow was supposedly busy, and would help the guys with math-related tasks related to their work. Some of them said I should quit the steel business and go to school and do something with math.
The guys wanted me to keep in touch, but after I was fired I fell into a state of depression where I rarely left the apartment, rarely did anything or socialized with anyone. I was offered a steel job somewhere else but never showed up. The new shop seemed so much like the old one, I could see it in the way management looked at me and talked to me, we were just expendable pawns to them. What happened to me at the old shop so unfair, why would I just take another job I would eventually get fired from? The months went by, my hair grew long, and my savings slowly drained. But one day I was bored and signed up for the GED, got one of the top scores in Ohio, next thing I know I'm in college.
So I'm in my fourth year in college. I've made this far. I knew nothing about calculus and physics when I started, now I tutor those subjects part-time at the University for a wage I could probably beat working at Wal-Mart. But it's rewarding work, tutoring students who are often adults like me, to help give them a chance at freedom from the rat-race of menial and dangerous labor from which I also came, so they can have a chance at a real salary, real Job Security, and real peace of mind. The worst part about school is the uncertainty, the small but real chance that this could all be for nothing. I lose sleep over it. I hear stories from people I know and folks all over the internets about getting a degree and not being able to find a job. Even my good GPA is not a guarantee. But I know what it's like out there without an education, so I keep going.
The Wizard of Jobs
There's job placement at my school, something like a paid internship, which can become long-term employment later on. It's the closest thing to a sure shot at landing a job. But it's highly structured, and closely tied to the unrealistic 17-19 credit schedule. The glass-enclosed, Venetian-blind-covered office sits like a miniature Emerald City at the top of a winding decorative staircase, and there are complicated rules about these "Co-Ops" and about visiting the office for information about a "Co-op" Job. But the woman in charge placing students in the program is the only gatekeeper between hopeful students and the cruel, unforgiving corporate world, and she is truly an expert, a real "Wizard of Jobs". I was hoping for a Co-Op job this spring, but the jobs weren't there, so I'm signing up for classes and going back in school. The Wizard said that maybe they will have better luck in summer or fall.
I got a few "class of 2014" emails from the Wizard's office which made me a little worried. I'm already 30 years old and I can't wait until 2014. I could go "Non Co-Op" and graduate in December 2012 or sooner, but where would I work? How would I pay back my tens of thousands of dollars in student loans? So I put my faith in the Wizard.
Thinking back, looking forward.
I still think about the guys at the steel shop. When I came in to claim my last paycheck about a month after my firing was finalized, I noticed that many of the safety hazards I had complained about had suddenly been fixed. So at least something good came from all this. From what little I've heard since then, most of those guys still work there, although a few had quit or been picked off by The Tinman. The company lost their lucrative military contract after failing some inspections because of poor management, which doesn't surprise me.
As for the Lion, I noticed that his union was publicly involved in the first day of Occupy Cleveland. But after the photo op was over and I was watching Occupy Cleveland being evicted from their camp on livestream, it was mentioned that the Lion and his support were conspicuously absent. That's the way he works, showing up at the beginning to make everyone feel good, then is nowhere to be found when his help is really needed. It was hard for me to put my support in unions after my dealings with the Lion. It wasn't until watching the solidarity and courage displayed in Wisconsin that I put my trust in unions again, and realized that the Cowardly Lion was the exception, not the rule.
So that's the story about how I became Broke and Unemployed. As for me, I have to hope that the American Dream is not really dead, that a former 'Steel Rat' can still get an education and rise through the ranks of society to claim his piece of the pie. I wrote this diary three months ago, but was inspired to finally post it by this diary on the rec list about working in the engineering world. Here's hoping things get better for America soon, from the Steel rats to the engineers, and everyone in between.