Meat industry layoffs in Iowa and across the country are familiar. Fort Dodge used to be a meatpacking town. So were Estherville and Cherokee. Spencer, too. It was not a huge surprise that Tyson announced it will close its Perry pork plant in June, idling some 1,200 workers.
Witnessed a parallel event in the petroleum support industry in Texas, Mid eighties. Wages are good, then a slowdown, finally layoffs. Rigs shut down. Drilling Tool plants idle. The Petroleum Industry knew how to squeeze the workers. With no jobs, they lost first their vacation homes, then their fancy pickups, finally their Mortgages were at stake. Idle Drilling Rigs could be bought at $.03 on the Dollar.
The Independents were squeezed out. The skilled Machinists were offered their old jobs for 40 percent of their former level and many took it to attempt to keep from losing their homes. They had already lost everything else. Oil picked up again with less diversity in Drilling and Exploration Companies and cheaper Machine tool wages.
The real punch line to this is the players that pulled this off all got elected and showed up in Washington DC in 2001.
Great OP ED, ART CULLEN - about pork plants closing - and how you just never know: the boom and bust cycle that is Iowa animal production and how it plays out in our towns and the whole state.
Brings me to question: what areJefferson, Greene County - and other surrounding counties doing to help? And to attract some of those workers to our open jobs?
Witnessed a parallel event in the petroleum support industry in Texas, Mid eighties. Wages are good, then a slowdown, finally layoffs. Rigs shut down. Drilling Tool plants idle. The Petroleum Industry knew how to squeeze the workers. With no jobs, they lost first their vacation homes, then their fancy pickups, finally their Mortgages were at stake. Idle Drilling Rigs could be bought at $.03 on the Dollar.
The Independents were squeezed out. The skilled Machinists were offered their old jobs for 40 percent of their former level and many took it to attempt to keep from losing their homes. They had already lost everything else. Oil picked up again with less diversity in Drilling and Exploration Companies and cheaper Machine tool wages.
The real punch line to this is the players that pulled this off all got elected and showed up in Washington DC in 2001.
Great OP ED, ART CULLEN - about pork plants closing - and how you just never know: the boom and bust cycle that is Iowa animal production and how it plays out in our towns and the whole state.
Brings me to question: what areJefferson, Greene County - and other surrounding counties doing to help? And to attract some of those workers to our open jobs?