Two Dollars and Fourty-Five Cents
Morning breaks early for the young man. His eyes like steel traps spring open at the incessant drone of the alarm breaking through the firmament of his dreams.
He gathers himself together and rushes out the door into the chilly autumn morning; indistinguishable from the night time. Soon, daylight will be a welcomed treat as the winter marches relentlessly forward, the warm laughter of the summertime now yet another memory. Ahead he pushes, to work in a factory, to dream all day.
He waits near a concrete bench, now too cold to sit on and he stares down a tunnel of headlights rushing endlessly toward him in his search for the words “Transway 1A”. He waits alone, listening to the song of tires on pavement, smelling the gasoline perfume these lumbering mechanical beasts expel. After a while his bus arrives, half full with faces. He sees the same faces, day after day, and hears the same conversations, day after day. Two dollars and fourty-five cents. His city is built on repetition, and people find comfort in knowing what will come towards them is the same as what has just passed them by.
He has often felt different than other people around him. When he was young his report cards constantly extolled the quality of his assignments, but he seemed to be easily bored, easily distracted, as if something was always on his mind, so in trying to find the root cause of his “problems” the teachers would use the refrain “He doesn’t apply himself”. He could be in a room full of people and feel totally alone.
He feels this way now, on this bus, at six o’clock in the morning, surrounded by other factory workers, other people on their way to wherever they may go. Across from him he hears a man speak of a plant
closing two days before Christmas. Now 1200 people have to figure out what to do with their lives. He rolls the number around in his head; he imagines the conversations that will occur that night when these people got home. He imagines ashtrays full of cigarettes, linoleum stained with work boot scuffs and tears, kitchen tables and sectional couches.
He imagines their worry, their raw fear come true. He imagines the American nightmare. At any moment this could all be over. He wonders how many people will give up, and how many will rely on the human spirit to pull them through.
He arrives at work with exactly twelve minutes left before he has to plunge himself into work. He thinks of his home, with his girlfriend in their warm bed, in their small apartment, sleeping away. He thinks of his daughter, so full of life, so mad to live, so mad to talk, and he wants to be home again. However before he can think any more he goes inside with the buzzing of an alarm.
Life for a factory worker is a constant series of alarms. Their lives are rigidly timed and scheduled. The factory worker’s god is time. Time controls all aspects of his life, even his emotions. This is
evident the most on the weekend, the time for bacchanalia, which is nothing more than a glorified countdown to when he has to live his life by the iron fist of the clock.
His day crawls by, uneventful. He does the same thing, essentially for eight mind numbing hours until the buzzer sounds again, telling him it is time to go home. From there he goes back on the same bus, sees a different group of the same faces, now mostly students heading home from college. These people are all mostly his age, but they have nothing in common with him. His is a life of hard choices and pure unadulterated reality, punctuated by moments of bliss and satisfaction. You see, his life isn’t all bad, yet he feels cheated.
He feels cheated by the system, which allowed him to fall through its cracks. In any other city, in any other reality he would have been something else, he would have had choices, yet he lives in a city unlike any other in his country, where people like him are ridiculed and shunned by the rest, told they are crazy and dismissed as lunatics.
He belongs with the mad people, mad to live, mad to invent, mad to talk. He belongs in hazy cafes, in small pubs around a circular table. He belongs at a typewriter, bottle of gin his only company.
He works hard every day, yet his pay does not reflect this. He knows of other people, older people who had larger families who had to find a way to exist by making less than he does. He knows people who are far more intelligent than he is, far more talented, but who will never know the simplest of pleasures in life. They will never buy a house, never be able to start a business, and never be able to provide for their families the way they deserve to be provided for. There is a real chance that he too will be chewed up and spat out onto the concrete and cracked pavement.
Finding another job is impossible. His city has the highest unemployment rate in the country, with no real hope of changing this statistic. His city is run by unions who take a dim view on large employers who have policies against establishing unions. At one time he could at least become an apprentice, learning a trade and making decent living wages, but those days are long gone, those jobs farmed out by large companies to other parts of the world where trade unions are illegal or ran by the state. He has before him two choices: either go to college, take a course and find work more suitable to his talents in another city and leave everything he has ever known behind him, or stay where he is and almost certainly become another statistic, another story that the old man tells on the morning bus, before he too is another statistic.
Above is a short story I wrote today. It is semi-autobiographical, maybe more. It is the culmination of the many conversations and observations I have made over the years with other workers.
The working poor in Windsor is something people do not discuss, they shy away from it. In a May, 2005 economics.ca essay by Wen-Hao Chen, Chen discovered that 27 percent of low-income workers had a college education, 70 percent of them were in their prime working years (25-54) and that 40.6 percent of workers (about 6.6 million people) could be classified as a low-income worker.
I have no idea how a company can justify paying someone a wage so low compared to the standard of living, or compared to the money they help generate for that company. I refuse to dismiss this away as sheer “capitalism” or a “free market system” because those are just words to people who have to deny their family simple pleasures, or deny their children a college education, and in certain situations, words don’t mean anything. They can be as empty as a dead corn field in January.
It is obvious to me that in our current system we cannot provide the types of choices and opportunities that would be dramatically beneficial to people looking to use their natural talents and make a career from them. I am such a proponent of do-it-yourselfishness because if the government doesn’t want to help you, if the banks don’t want to help you, then you have to make it on your own. This is why the help of like-minded people who can help the cause financially is so crucial.
They know, often before the public at large knows, the value of enterpeneurship and creativity in society. Therefore, these committed few will be the first to see the dramatic changes and upheaval that inevitably occurs in the wake of these ventures.
This is where ingenuity and imagination come into play. What gives me hope is James Coulter’s idea of people starting a bicycle manufacturing facility, which will create spin off jobs in the tool and die industry for the parts and machining expertise that is required for a quality bicycle. We are a city gifted by mechanical expertise, and a business such as this will help steer the people’s focus in the direction of alternative modes and means.
Another light in the darkness is Chris Holt’s recent showcase of the Centre for Social Innovation, which is a self-sustaining business model, and another job creating entity. It also fosters tourism, the kind of tourism you want to have, rather than the type we have now, for the most part. (see, downtown Windsor, 11pm, Saturday night)
Perhaps I am an idealist, or maybe just young and dumb, but I will go to my grave trying to establish a place like this in Windsor.
Ideas are dangerous and conversation can lead to all out revolution.
“The longest journey”, to quote the Tao Te Ching, “begins with a single step.” To me, Scaledown, the Centre for Social Innovation, CoolTown Studios, the Washington DC BetaCommunity, et al, intrinsically symbolise that crucial first step.
There is a panel discussion/ forum at the Windsor Art Gallery on Sunday the 19th, involving local bloggers, community leaders, and private citizens called AgendaCamp. Hosted by Steve Paikin, it is a five city tour which stops first in Windsor where the discussion will be centred upon manufacturing and the economy. –thanks to Andrew at internationalmetropolis.com for posting this crucial info!
This is a very good thing for Windsor and a very good thing for people with a desire for change. The whole country will be watching, and we can now let them hear our voice, and see the finest minds in our city inaction.
Tags: bohemian, culture, Entrepreneurs, underemployment, wasted resources
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Very few people understand what it is like to work in a factory, Brendan. And unfortunately, with the excessive wages paid by a few local firms, factory workers receive little understanding of their probems.
I did it for 15 years and couldn’t wait to get out. Same thing with UrbanRat. You’re not alone.
One of the things that a speaker at the CCS2.0 conference told the crowd was that it was a terrible thing for our society to waste natural resources, yet it is almost more detrimental to our culture and well being (I’m paraphrasing here) to waste human resources. A writer working the line is wasting those resources and we’re glad that you get to stretch those writing muscles here with us on SD. Keep at it, Brendan!
I’m glad I’m not alone in this, Chris. The vocal big three 35 dollar an hour guys make people believe that everyone who works in a factory tethered to the auto industry makes killer money, but that is certainly not the case. Most of us make really low wages, and the jobs we do are very physically demanding. Its also demanding on your personal life as well, because you walk around with a rain cloud over you all the time.
Thanks for reading this one, everybody, it was one of those “release” moments. I hope I helped some of you in the same situation with this in some way. Remember, one day it will all make sense.
i’m one of those people too brendan….well, kinda. i do contracted security for one of these big 3 plants and get paid peanuts. for the day to day job i do, i suppose my pay is alright, but i’m still pay cheque to pay cheque. but at any point, on any given day, when the brown stuff hits the fan it’s my life on the line. when everyone is running out of the plant, we’re running in. we are the plants paramedics, fire fighters, confined space and rescue from heights..uh, rescuers (lol), HAZMAT team and so on, and so on, and so on.
it also really upsets me that we have a janitor that may, or may not come out to our office to clean 3 garbage cans..for $35 p/hr. but rest assured, when you ask him how his day is, he in all honesty answers “stress stress stress. too much to clean, and not enough pay” this comes from a man, who can call in 5 days a week, work 2, 12 hrs shifts on the weekend, and litteraly make more then i do in an entire month - i have an intense dislike for this person, and the others like him with that specific type of attitude.
Great post Brendan. Please, keep sharing those release moments.
On the value of the bike – I have long felt that there is something missing in the core of the city. The answer: a neighborhood bike and sportswear shop. A shop that advocates bike use and a healthy lifestyle, that organizes biking events, that provides biking and walking tours for tourist, that organizes bike to school programs for our kids, basically the nucleus of the transformations we want to see in Windsor from a car centric to a bike and walkable friendly city.
Brendan, do you know of a young, passionate, entrepreneur? Do you know a person with a do-it-yourself attitude and a deep desired to change this city for the better?
You’re looking at one of them, Edwin. The best part is that I know I am not alone, and that gives me hope, knowing that our way of thinking at Scaledown is at the vanguard. We already know the truth before everyone else does, and I know that you and a lot of people who read this are in on it too.
We had a bike shop downtown. Though the owner was a bit different and may have been hard to get along with he still had good bikes at good prices, offering many amenities.
The problem was that people didn’t shop there. They could buy a bike at Crappy Tire or Sprawl-Mart for $99.00. What small business owner can compete with that?
You will state that there are other independant bike shops that do well, which there are a few. However have you seen the rent charged in downtown? The insurance rates? Those are factors that are killing our downtown and yet the building owners (who mostly live outside of Windsor) haven’t budged on their rental fees. Over 12% vacancy and yet these people think their ugly buildings are gold!
We really need to start to look at other ways of promotig our downtown by courting those bulding owners into realizing that Windsor cannot and will not support those rent prices.
As for other areas in the city why hasn’t Windsor offered a strategic meeting to the mould/tool & die industry and automation OEMs in order to facilitate new growth in new areas such as green technology, healthcare machines, surgical equipment. What I want to know is why aren’t we on the forefront of green technology! That would push Windsor to the front of the list and diversify a stagnant economy that is only going down. Yet, Windsor has yet to even have a strategic session in order to get out of this mess.
Are we going to wait around like the ostrich or are we going to plow forward and change our destiny ourselves?
Me, the attitude of the shop owner matters. No small business can compete against Crappy Tire or Sprawl-Mart on price. But, that’s an opportunity as well as a disadvantage. Big box cannot compete against small business on the level of service either.
This is where I disagree with Chris, Mark, Andrew and many others on this Blog. Big Box has its place. And, they are not the only ones to blame in the decline of small business in the core. Small businesses in Windsor share the blame. They have been lazy in reacting to the changes that big box represents. I know lazy is perhaps too strong but strong words are needed to get businesses to react and start competing effectively against the big boxes.
There are only three successful business strategies that offer sustainable competitive advantage. These three strategies are: a cost leadership strategy, a differentiation strategy, and a focus strategy.
Obviously, big box follow a cost leadership strategy.
Small businesses need to follow a focus strategy if they want to be successful.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In this strategy the firm concentrates on a select few target markets. It is also called a focus strategy or niche strategy. It is hoped that by focusing your marketing efforts on one or two narrow market segments and tailoring your marketing mix to these specialized markets, you can better meet the needs of that target market. The firm typically looks to gain a competitive advantage through effectiveness rather than efficiency. It is most suitable for relatively small firms but can be used by any company. As a focus strategy it may be used to select targets that are less vulnerable to substitutes or where a competition is weakest to earn above-average return on investment.
So, for the many Windsorites who are simply looking to buy a bike to store in their garage most of the year, except for that one week-end when they tie it to the back of their SUV and go biking somewhere, Crappy Tire or Sprawl-Mart is where they buy it. And, I would argue, that is good because they are paying the lowest cost possible for something they don’t really need and allows them to spend more money else where in the local economy.
For others who are not looking to buy a bike but, a healthy lifestyle and a community of people that believes walking and biking is a mode of transportation not just a recreational activity the small bike shop will better meet their needs.
Well, ME I believe that we need to lobby the local government to subsidize and/or give tax breaks to green industries such as a bike retail, repair, or manufacturing. The local/federal government must introduce legislation that would put a cap or a lean on the rents that these places pay to these absentee landlords, or lets keep those landlords honest by penalizing them for raising rents too high, or not maintaining their properties.
A good way to do this from a sort of left handed political way is to impose a law that states that every building’s storefront has to have a certain look, or motif, creating a “district” feel to it. This would force these missing landlords into either selling, or fixing up their properties and attracting businesses into their storefronts and spaces.
Perhaps instead of having large empty windows we could have murals or prints by local artists hanging in the vacant storefronts to add to the motif until these businesses gain tenants. If the absent landlords don’t like it, they can sell their buildings and life will go on. I dont like out of town investors, I think they are bad for this city so I don;t care if that pisses them off, or scares them away quite frankly.
For the good guys we can get a positive spin by giving them tax breaks for providing space for local entrepeneurs with creative and innvoative job creating businesses.
Also, ME look beyond downtown, I am envisioning Walkerville, personally. There is already the base there, the free thinkers live there, and I think a business like that would do very well in that section along Wyandotte. Right now downtown Windsor is like a wayward son. It will come back, but only after it falls flat on it’s face, and makes a fool out of itself.
There are many other industries that could be utilized for this as well. I believe that the city has two choices : be at the vanguard of the movement, or try and play catch up with the other cities that have the foresight to see the huge cash cow that these industries will be in the coming years.
Can’t argue with your post Brendan.
To play devil’s advocate. If the city were to legislate your storefront policy or lower rent (which I believe is a provincial jurisdication but I may be wrong) caps then the business community will just state that Windsor is being anti-business.
What I believe may help is that the city needs to work with these land owners to help them promote their buildings and the businesses that are in them. By having a REAL small business task force that will do everything from helping someone locate a business where they would have the biggest impact to wiping their butts if need be (a little gross but you get my point). But it is better to think of different avenues and have dialogue (again reach out to them to see what it is the businesses need) then to pretend everything is good and plow straight ahead as the city is doing now because as we are seeing and have seen the staus quo isn’t working no matter how much Windsor wants you to believe WE CAN.
Here’s a great blurb!!…
“……The report concludes that LRT “has great potential to influence urban growth and revitalize a city’s central area”, by strengthening existing neighbourhoods and attracting new development clusters around transit stations. The strongest development potential is in the downtown core. ..”
Sadly, though it doesn’t refer to Windsor, but, to Hamilton…. http://www.raisethehammer.org/blog.asp?id=1114