from Hacker News

With His Job Gone, an Autoworker Wonders, ‘What Am I as a Man?’

by MagicPropmaker on 5/29/19, 6:48 PM with 77 comments

by manfredo on 5/29/19, 7:27 PM
I think the most important thing here is the difference in outlook. The people in this story lived their lives with the assumption that they will live the same lives as their parents. This hasn't been true since the industrial revolution (>80% of people working in agriculture shrunk to ~2%). This reminds me of British coal-workers striking over layoffs, even though they would receive the same paycheck for life if they were laid off. Their rationale is that they were striking for their children's future jobs in the coal mine. That just struck me as depressing, that parents just assumed that their kids' lot in lives would be a coal miner just like them. Maybe this is the immigrant mentality that people talk about, but
> Cheering the deal might check a political box for the president, but getting hired by the buyer would probably mean making $11 an hour, he said, a wage he last made in his early 20s. “It would be back to square one after 25 years in the plant,” he said.
Rick seems to be following the same line of thinking. The notion of working in a different industry just doesn't seem to be considered.
This is probably one of the best times in recent history to start looking for a job. Unemployment is at record lows, and growth is fairly strong. I think the biggest issue here isn't layoffs, it's people putting their sense of identity into their job instead of viewing it as a transaction. 80% of employees at the beginning of the 20th century worked in industries that are either non-existent or drastically smaller by the end of the 20th century. I see no reason why we should expect the 21st century to be any different. Rick's assumption that he would work in the same industry as his father for the entirety of his life seems to be the biggest culprit here, not NAFTA.
by twblalock on 5/29/19, 9:33 PM
Stories like this demonstrate that our idea of the "middle class" is a postwar anomaly. People ask why the middle class is shrinking, but really we should be asking why such a large middle class ever existed. It was never normal until after WWII.
In the postwar period, American manufacturing had far less competition than it does now. Most other industrialized countries were recovering from the war, foreign cars did not fit American consumer preferences, and China was locked into a decades-long cycle of self-destruction. Automation technology wasn't very good, so there were tons of factory jobs. All of that has now changed.
This man's job, and the other jobs like it, only existed because of historical circumstances that cannot be replicated. Politicians might be able to save some manufacturing jobs, but we will never have nearly as many as we did before.
I feel sorry for this man, because jobs like his aren't coming back, and because he is being lied to by politicians who say those jobs can be saved.
It's possible that what we are now seeing is the end of a historical and economic anomaly: a mass middle class. Our politics is not handling it well.
by csours on 5/29/19, 8:56 PM
Disclaimer up front: I work for GM, and previously worked in a plant. Any opinions are my own.
Besides all the larger questions of politics and automation, it really awesome to be part of a team that builds 1000 vehicles a day. Seeing them roll off the end of the line never stops being cool. In IT, your project may last for months and you only see small changes happen slowly over time. In the plant you see parts come together into a complete vehicle over the course of a day.
In IT, if a site or service is down, you know it's a problem, but in manufacturing if the line stops you can see hundreds of people just sitting there.
---
People talk about automation like it's new. Automakers have been automating from the very beginning. Designing and building cars is a big job. Designing and building the machine that builds the cars is also a big job. The machine that builds the cars is made of suppliers, trucks, railroads, robots, conveyors, information systems, and yes, people.
Line workers look like people to you and me, and they certainly are people; but to the machine that builds cars they look like extremely capable but slightly inconsistent robots.
by habosa on 5/29/19, 9:14 PM
The comments section on this article makes me sad to be a part of the HN community.
Show some empathy for a man who lost the best thing he ever had. He isn't asking for the world, actually in the article he didn't ask for anything. He was content to make $25 an hour forever and spend it on his family's health and happiness. That's a reasonable thing to want from life in America. Nit picking the particulars of his case isn't useful.
If you say "just move" or "get a new job" or "shoulda seen it coming" consider what you'd feel like if you lost your job of 2+ decades and that job had not helped you develop other marketable skills.
Not every person can have a high-skilled and transferable job like a software engineer.
by bbulkow on 5/29/19, 8:32 PM
Very interesting article. I see someone who won the lottery. They have built a huge house and family, based on the single skill of showing up for work, and having the right father. While this happens, this person thinks it is thier right, and they will fight politically with every ounce, wrecking whatever institutions and future health of the political system, to keep the privleges they inherited. No sense of altruism or giving back, just keeping what is theirs, justified as there is a child invoked.
The profile is very insightful, but depressing, as how can we have anything but a selfish fight of selfish people, is that what democracy devolves to?
by dfxm12 on 5/29/19, 7:36 PM
Just wondering, how common is it to define yourself as your job? My job is as boring and globally pointless as making cars. I'm not going to be so presumptuous as to claim to have an answer to such a philosophical question of what it means to be a man, but I do know "having the same job in perpetuity" would be relatively low on the list.
I might even think the reliance on politicians, or belief in their obvious lies about such situations as decidedly childish.
by NeoBasilisk on 5/29/19, 10:28 PM
It is depressing to hear from people in the comments that they think a viable solution is to just abandon entire regions of the country. Yes, let's just pack everyone into NY, SF, LA, and Chicago.
by melling on 5/29/19, 7:19 PM
Automation, offshoring, and foreign competition have been happening for several decades. GM used to produce half the cars in the US. It’s 2019, not 1989!
https://knoema.com/infographics/floslle/top-vehicle-manufact...
by blunte on 5/29/19, 9:35 PM
One of the things that makes a (hu)man is the ability to learn. So what a "man" is after losing one job or career is a person who can learn something new and do something else. That doesn't solve short-medium term financial challenges, but I find it hard to accept that one's life is over if their primary job ends.
by 1024core on 5/29/19, 8:50 PM
We need a jobs retraining program that people like him can avail of. And companies who move jobs overseas must be made to pay for retraining these folks for other jobs. They shouldn't be allowed to just pull up stakes and move out without some repercussions.
by sdegutis on 5/29/19, 7:08 PM
> Rick Marsh worked in the car plant in Lordstown his entire life. Now that job is gone. What does that mean for his politics?
That's one heck of a bait-and-switch. The concept of "whence is my inherent worth or intrinsic value" is way more interesting than "how does automation affect my politics."
by erik_landerholm on 5/29/19, 8:34 PM
I’ve lived in 3 different states and 4 different places for work, in 5 different industries in the last 15 years, while having 4, now 5 kids. It’s not something everyone can do, but it’s not impossible. I have no idea why anyone would care so much to stay in a specific place and work in a specific industry.
Obviously, if you have sick family or other challenges I get it. I’m assuming able bodied and normal ties to places and things.