We’re going backward
We’re going backward
EDITOR:
I am not a college graduate, just high school, although our kids that graduate college today have to go all over the country because there are no jobs to be had in our area. They go miles from home with mountains of debt on their backs for their education and get jobs that really don’t pay so well. This country is going backward, not forward.
I am a retiree from Packard Electric under General Motors. When I got hired in 1963 as a new hiree I heard all the seniority people talking about the different lines going to Mexico or down south for cheap labor. These lines were hard jobs, so they were happy to see them go. Well, all the hard lines are gone — and even the easier ones — and all these people lost their jobs, health insurance, pension, homes, savings, etc. At the time I really didn’t understand what was going on, but I soon learned. To be honest with you I really wasn’t that worried about General Motors. I really thought they were too big for such a thing to happen.
Isn’t it a shame that a company that has done right by its employees by paying them a decent wage, medical insurance, pension, vacation and holidays, overtime and a safe work area has to “belly up” to all employers who pay low wage and give them 31 hours a week so they are not full time and can’t get anything extra. I feel sorry for myself that I might lose my benefits and some of my pension, but I really feel sorry for these people who have nothing more to lose. I have collected my pension since 1988 plus benefits and bonus that my union negotiated for and the company gave to us.
As I drive down all the different roads and see all the foreign cars, I wonder if all these people have decent jobs to make the car payments. I hope the trickle down effect doesn’t affect their jobs. Just remember, you are supporting Japan and Korea with these cars, not your own.
Also, it doesn’t take a Wall Street lawyer to figure out that if you don’t have people working, you don’t have a tax base, so people aren’t paying taxes so the first things they cut is police and fire, I hope my house isn’t burning or being robbed at gunpoint.
So just keep supporting all the countries of the world, and your job and pension can be next.
Remember the steel mills, clothing, GE light bulbs, contaminated food from Mexico? We are becoming a third world country. We came so far, and now we are going that far back, and then some.
ANN MARIE MECKES
Girard
Latest slap at West Side comes from postal service
EDITOR:
I wonder what the powers that be must be doing when they come up with “logical thinking” of closing the West Side Post Office? Another slap in the face to the West Side residents who patronize that facility. There are no convenient mail boxes easy to get to and now it will be more difficult to get downtown or to Austintown. There are very few days when the parking lot is not full of postal activity from the residents who use this convenience. Shame on your decision making process.
The West Side pays more than it’s fair share in taxes and is getting less in service than other districts. We watched the closing of the ice skating rink, Borts Pool, and the soon to be gone West Side Library, and now the local post office.
Why not post a new sign on the Mahoning Avenue bridge welcoming people to the “Dead Zone,” since politicians and others are intent in doing the good people on the West Side a disservice.
Give us a break already,
ARLENE M. NAGY
Youngstown