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Good jobs not waiting for vets
(by Dave Lange - April 09, 2009)
COUNTY LINE, BY DAVE LANGE
Good jobs not waiting for vets
My dad, like so many men of his generation, came home from World War II and went to work in a Pittsburgh steel mill. When that work dried up, he got a job at the Ford Motor Co.'s Cleveland Stamping Plant.
In those days, Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican who respected veterans and supported hardworking Americans, was president. The average chief executive officer was paid about 20 times as much as the typical worker. The top federal income-tax rate was 92 percent.
My dad toiled away on the assembly lines, often 12 hours a day, seven days a week, to pay the mortgage on a $12,000 bungalow in a working-class neighborhood. He never dreamed of moving to a fine suburb like Shaker Heights and hardly knew that places like Pepper Pike and Gates Mills existed.
The little bit of savings that my parents were able to put in the bank disappeared fast on those few occasions when the United Auto Workers voted to strike. But it was worth it. The company gave us health insurance, which was reasonably priced at the time, paid extra for overtime hours, improved working conditions and provided a solid pension plan.
When I came home from Vietnam, like many men of my generation, I went to work at the Ford factory too. Richard M. Nixon, a Republican who didn't care much for the veterans of that unpopular war and patronized the blue-collar "silent majority," was president. The average CEO was paid about 30 times as much as the typical worker. The top income-tax rate was 70 percent.
I toiled away on the assembly line so that I could put money away for tuition. Ford put me through college. When I walked out that stamping-plant door for the last time, my dad was still there.
With the pain in his legs worsening, a lasting memory of the war, Dad retired in the mid-1980s. Ronald Reagan, a Republican who created new veterans in places like Lebanon and Grenada and was committed to busting the working man's unions, was president. The average CEO was paid nearly 70 times as much as the typical worker. The top income-tax rate was down to 50 percent.
The Ford Motor Co. health plan paid for my dad's amputations. The pension supported him until he died in misery in 1990. It helped support my mom until cancer took her this January. They never did move to Pepper Pike.
American auto makers spent $100 billion on health-care coverage last year, mostly for retirees. The United States is the only auto-producing country in the world without national health insurance.
Barack Obama, a Democrat who says he cares about veterans and about American workers, is president. His administration is advocating a $2.5 trillion bailout for the greed-ridden financial industry and letting its executives grab multimillion-dollar bonuses, because they had contracts. But he wants to gut auto workers' contracts before approving a comparatively measly $17.4 billion in federal loans to their employers.
Today, the average CEO is paid 275 times as much as the typical worker. The top income-tax rate is just 35 percent.
The CEOs are complaining about redistribution of wealth. Americans are buying cars from countries that provide their citizens with health insurance and pensions while assailing the benefits paid by Ford, Chrysler and General Motors. Veterans coming home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan won't be finding work in the auto plants.
Some people say patriotism is made in America.
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