Postcard From Janesville, Wisc., Where Safety Nets Aren’t Just Frayed—They’re Busted

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6055/postcard_from_janesville_wisc._where_safety_nets_arent_just_frayedthey/

Friday June 4 2:10 pm

By Roger Bybee


A fence surrounds the shuttered GM assembly plant May 4, 2009 in Janesville, Wisc. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)


For workers in Wisconsin, the Great Recession has meant a brutal wave of plant closings, Depression-era levels of unemployment and a toll on physical and mental health that cannot yet be fully measured.

Frankly, it's been a depressing experience documenting the pain caused by the 1-2 punch of the Wall Street meltdown and corporate relocations from cities across my home state. President Obama must be credited with ramming through a stimulus plan that prevented even worse devastation, but his administration nonetheless allowed Chrysler to use bailout money to shift the last 850 auto jobs in Wisconsin from Kenosha to a new engine plant in Mexico.

There have been episodic expressions of resistance to the corporate assault in Wisconsin, with impressive demonstrations in Kenosha and Kimberly. But why aren't we seeing non-stop massive resistance to this tide of outrageous corporate conduct?

Perhaps the most revealing explanation of the lack of collective response actually comes from an anecdote recounted by the director of a medical and dental clinic in Janesville, a town on the skids since GM closes its giant assembly plant just before Christmas in 2008.

DEPLORABLE DENTAL HEALTH

Laura Scudiere, director of the Bridge Clinic in Janesville, told me that one
outcome of the GM plant closing and the recession has been a major increase in the need for health treatment. Between 2008 and 2009, the clinic experienced a 40% increase in demand as doctors and dentists increasingly "were unwilling or unable to see Medicare patients," as she put it.

FULL story at link.

[Scuba]

1. Thanks, Steve....

...for keeping this tragedy visible. It's also worth mentioning that Mercury Marine in Fond du Lac, Wi used the threat of moving jobs to win major concessions from the Union and tax breaks from the state and then had the audacity to give bonuses to their management personnel.

Now Harley Davidson is trying to pull the same ploy in Milwaukee.

These despicable fat cats won't be happy until they have slave labor.

[RKP5637]

2. American's future in two short videos

This tells American's future in two short videos, where we are currently headed.

Post Manufacturing, moving to other countries...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JbGxIR8JTk&feature=related

Post Employment, moving the money out of mainstream America...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6WKMNmFsxM&feature=related