Screwed in Scranton: Why Is This Just a Local Fight?

[marmar]

from In These Times:



Screwed in Scranton: Why Is This Just a Local Fight?
By Roger Bybee


Mitt Romney’s vision of radically depleted, enfeebled public institutions for America is so extreme that even union-busting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker felt obligated to distance himself from it. But the Romney formula for reducing government is being enthusiastically applied in Pennsylvania, where Republican Gov. Tom Corbett is letting fiscally troubled cities like Scranton struggle for survival completely on their own, while lavishing huge tax breaks on corporations like Royal Dutch Shell.

In Scranton, the mayor of the long-struggling city recently slashed the pay of 398 public workers to the legal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. “Under the plan, the average firefighter in Scranton would see his yearly salary drop from $55,910 to $15,080 -- below the federal poverty line for a two-person household,” The Huffington Post reported.

Scranton’s problems are actually typical of the financial death spiral facing many mid-sized towns in Pennsylvania and across the United States (see here, here and here) after three decades of deindustrialization and a halting economic recovery with continuing wage cuts. "Cities like Scranton have been hit hard by the loss of manufacturing and a loss of population, so that they are left trying to maintain services with a smaller tax base," economist Stephen Herzenberg, director of the Keystone Research Center, a progressive think tank in Pennsvlvania, says. "But when the quality of services like education fall, better-off families will move out, and these cities won’t attract industry."

The draconian, suddenly imposed pay cuts have generated enormous national attention. But stunningly, comments by the local combatants and former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, a pro-corporate Democrat, have almost entirely neglected the larger context of America’s glaring income inequality, its long-suffering industrial cities, and Pennsylvania’s shamelessly pro-corporate budget priorities. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/13523/screwed_in_scranton_for_7.25_an_hour_why_is_this_just_a_local_fight/

[Iggy]

1. Well, thanks to the Kool-Aid (propaganda from the wealthy class)

we Americans don't really do things collectively.. boycotts are discouraged, etc.

if some workers "over there" are being stomped on and abused.. well, it's not happening
to me (yet) so why get involved?

It's Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath all over again

[FarCenter]

2. Lakawanna county's largest employer was a CD and DVD manufacturer

It started out as Warner records manufacturing operation. It was sold to the Canadian company Cinram.

Volumes of CDs and DVDs are down markedly and are going to mostly disappear with online streaming.

Former worker: "There is life after Cinram"

http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/former-worker-there-is-life-after-cinram-1.1246449

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WEA_Manufacturing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinram_International

Cinram sold to a private equity firm

An Arizona private equity firm has agreed to buy Cinram International Income Fund for an undisclosed price.

Cinram operates a manufacturing plant in Olyphant that employs 500 people.

Najafi Companies, a Phoenix private investment concern, and Toronto-based Cinram announced the sale Monday. Cinram, a financially strapped manufacturer of digital video discs and compact discs, reported in April it was pursuing a buyer.

The sale, which is expected to be finalized in August, could spell a reprieve for the beleaguered manufacturer.

http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/cinram-sold-to-a-private-equity-firm-1.1334719

[AdHocSolver]

3. The cannibalization, a la Bain Capital, begins.

Hopefully, this possible outcome doesn't occur. However, it is frequently what happens.

[FarCenter]

4. There is hardly anything left to cannibalize --

The work force was at least 2300 when CD and DVD production was at its peak around 2000.

It is down to 500 now.

But yes, they will probably close what is left, and CDs and DVDs die out.

[socialist_n_TN]

5. What this means to me in the meta sense..........

is that contracts don't mean shit when it comes to protecting the working class. Protecting capital? SURE. These municipalities give away MILLIONS of tax dollars to "attract" businesses to an area, but can't claw them back if the businesses close after a couple of years. They "contracted" those tax breaks and can't go back on a "contract". HOWEVER, workers who, through their union, contracted salary and benefits FROM the city are fair game when a crunch comes. And nobody seems to DO anything about it. The unions go to court. Big deal. Win or lose, the workers have STILL lost.

[AdHocSolver]

6. Democrats are spending all their ammunition on Romney who is in meltdown anyway.

I have posted this warning in other threads.

Democrats had better start focusing on Congressional and gubernatorial races and other state races or the same stalemated government situation is going to be repeated in the next four years.

If the right wing can frustrate President Obama for the next four years, then they will have won, even without the Presidency.

What the Democrats need to do is to get the public to understand that Romney is not an unusual anomaly, but rather Romney is the heart and soul of the current Republican Party.

Democrats are losing the battle by NOT understanding the enemy when they place significance on the comment:

"Mitt Romney’s vision of radically depleted, enfeebled public institutions for America is so extreme that even union-busting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker felt obligated to distance himself from it."

Walker would only distance himself from Romney because Walker is in big trouble in Wisconsin because of his own shenanigans, not because of Romney's extremism.

A bigger problem for Democrats, other than who becomes the Republican nominee, is the attempt to disenfranchise voters who would normally vote for Democrats. If the Republicans get away with this effort, the ball game is over. Democrats would do better to shift resource to stopping them in this endeavor.