[rrob311]

How is springfield nowadays? Is it mostly section 8 and welfare?

[FrugalYankee]

Springfield's long time Town Manager is retiring and there is a new guy who came in from Henniker NH. He was also the Town Manager in West Rutland. Some new blood can't hurt.

[cgregor]

Viewing movies like "Wal-Mart," "Inequality for All" and "Hot Coffee" will help you get an idea of the problems underlying Springfield's ills, which are common to many American small towns. Very, very few of the residents understand the forces which sucked a lot of the economic life out of the town and which influence them to feel confused, hopeless and helpless. Many of those who have the talents and abilities to make changes are unable to latch onto the fundamentals simply because they have to put the welfare of their families first and have no additional time or energy to spare.

[FrugalYankee]

The unions in Springfield had a lot to do with the decline. Their unreasonable demands not the only reason business was driven out, but it certainly didn't help. were Many of the problems in town result from the lack of a "champion" like Edgar May. The movers and shakers are primarily interested in milking the town for what they can get out of it as opposed to banding together for the good of the community.

[cgregor]

The Springfield unions had a lot to do with the prosperity of the town. A friend of mine who was hired at $12 an hour as a principal in the late 60's in Springfield found out that a floor sweeper in the shops started at $17. In adjusted dollars, this is the equivalent of $130,000 a year in 2014.

As a result, Springfield households-- some 3,000 of them-- were supported by a single wage earner, and there was always a parent in the household for the children. Some $3.2 million (current dollars) was available every month to be spent in Springfield stores and paid to Springfield landlords.

Compare that with the $10.25 per hour (maximum) earned by the service employees in Springfield today, and you can see where unionizing would bring money back into the town, rather than see profits go to "five guys in Texas."

[FrugalYankee]

The fact that floor sweepers got $17 /hr was exactly what drove the shops first south and then to the far east. Those guys were not worth the pay they were getting. It may have been a nice party for them while it lasted, but they were living on borrowed time. And some of us did not appreciate the union thugs that went around slashing people's tires.

What remains of the union slime has a lot to do with the current situation in the town. The same union bosses who were trying to milk what they could out of what was left of the shops are the same people who became slumlords with the ratmaze properties that have a higher incidence of fires. Coincidence that somehow those slums don't get inspected by the Springfield Fire Marshall because he is the son of one of the union bosses who was buddy-buddy with the town's most notorious slumlord / former union boss? The one whose wife KILLED somebody with her car and got off scot-free?

Please. Same ****, different decade.

[cgregor]

So, FrugalYankee, why hasn't the same happened in Germany, which still happens to have very highly-paid workers, strong unions and a strong industrial base? I think there are other things going on here which are overlooked.

[FrugalYankee]

1) Germany does not have a citizenship by birth law. Germany only confers citizenship via citizenship of the parents. The concept of "anchor babies" does not exist. This is only a small part of the problem which defines the difference between the US and Germany. The US has a lot more poor people overall, because all you have to do to get in is be born here.

2) Germany has a welfare system which acts first to take care of those in need but then goes after anyone and everyone who is closely related. Germany can even go after an ex-spouse to reimburse the state for welfare paid out to someone who is dependent on government handouts.

3) Germany has a tiered educational system which tracks kids as early as the age of ten into vocational or college bound secondary schools. They don't play the "everyone is a winner" game. If you stink adademically, you are told so. If you are good, you are given the opportunity to develop yourself to your fullest potential. Tuition at universities is a token amount - they used to be tuition-free.

4) The government of Germany is acutely aware of the fact that Germany has no natural resources to speak of (unless you want to count weather which is conducive to growing food). As a result they take science and technology seriously enough to support it with meaningful science and technology initiatives. Don't even get me started on where Vermont stands on this count.

5) While the thugs in Springfield were pounding on the table insisting that the floor sweepers get paid $20 an hour instead of $17, engineers in Germany were busy developing the CNC machines that would make the vast majority of machinists obsolete. No need to be able to read a drawing, decide which steps to perform in which order and then implement on a leather-band driven lathe or mill. Now any machine operator can mount the blank and let the NC machine make the part according to the digital version of the drawing. All the $10/hr machine operator has to be able to do is hit the red "Stop" button if the machine starts to squeal.

Need more?

There are PLENTY of things going on here. The cheap one to copy is the unions. Any band of chmpanzees can band together and form a union. It takes more, far more to be able to OFFER something to employers that they actually need. The ability to say "gimme more" won't cut it and it certainly doesn't cut it in Germany.

Oh and by the way, when German companies look for places to locate their subsidiaries, they sure don't look at VT. One of the prime factors aside from infrastructure is a LACK of a union mentality. That goes for firms from other countries as well.

[cgregor]

And after Textron moved the optical comparator division from Springfield, Vermont to the union-free "right to work" state of South Carolina, it went bankrupt in only two years. The union guys in Springfield were paid well because they knew what to do. Textron of course prided itself on how it maximized shareholder profit as a result of the collapse.

Also, VW in Tennessee insisted that its workers at least be allowed to vote to form an autoworkers' union in its plant. I don't think the problem is with the unions, but with something embedded more deeply in American society.

[FrugalYankee]

The VW workers REJECTED unionization at the TN plant. Why do you think foreign automakers are choosing southern states for their plants?

The union guys in Springfield were paid well because they knew what to do at a time when their skills were in demand. When the writing was on the wall that their skills were becoming obsolete, they scrambled all over themselves trying to milk what they could before the shops skipped town. Personally I have no sympathy for any of them. If they live to see their middle aged kids unable to make ends meet without working two or three McJobs and their grandchildren on welfare and drugs, in large part they have themselves to blame.