Seniority and the City in Decline
Seniority (n) (American Heritage Dictionary) [s?n-yôr'?-t?, -y?r'-]
1. The state of being older than another or others or higher in rank than another or others.
2. Precedence of position, especially precedence over others of the same rank by reason of a longer span of service.
Seniority (n) (Plant Floor Definition) [seen-yawr-i-tee, -yor-]
1. The last one in the door is the first one out!
Anyone who has ever spent any time in this city of ours knows that seniority is the way we decide who stays and who goes around here. When you’ve got a large percentage of the population performing the very same tasks at the very same wage with the very same amount of responibility, is there any other way?
While this may work perfectly well on the plant floor, the notion of seniority has dangerous repercussions for a community in decline. Think about it – who is left after the dust settles from the various plant closures? The old timers. The employees who have multiple-decades working are the ones remaining. Now – please don’t take this out of context. In no way am I saying that these long-time employees deserve to get the boot. I’m just asking you to think about the ramifications of choosing the winners and losers this way.
These long-time employees are the ones who have toiled away in our foundries and assembly lines, paying off their mortgages, their boats and their children’s education for years. They are the ones with the fully furnished suburban mansions and the SUVs in their driveways, without a lick of debt. They are the ones who take expensive cruise ship vacations to Mexico and Cuba, or have their condos down south in the Sunshine State. They’ve earned it, as anyone who has ever worked in a factory can attest. It’s a crappy job, but one that happens to pay very well.
You know what it’s like when it comes time to buy your parents or grandparents a gift? They’ve got everything! What on earth do they want/need so I can put it under the Christmas tree for them? These are those very persons who are left in our community after the young workers have lost their jobs and left in search of an income. Sure, they may have a disposable income to go out to a restaurant more often, or buy that high-end Lincoln instead of the Focus, but their everyday needs are well covered. They are not hiring a local construction company to build them their next home, because they’re at the top of the real estate ladder. They are not employing the local mechanic because they drive brand new cars with warrantees. They don’t have kids in the school system any longer, but they are requiring more access to our health care system. These are the folks that are left in our city.
But, are they really in our city? Chances are that their “American Dream” was actually a suburban one, and they squandered and saved their way to a raised ranch out in one of Windsor’s bedroom communities. It is the younger folks that are traditionally populating our cities core neighbourhoods and sending their kids to the local schools. They are the ones patronizing the local shops and our downtown entertainment districts and imparting some sense of urbanity into our automotive town.
Which is leaving Windsor looking like a doughnut after they lose their jobs and trek out west looking for a replacement paycheque.
The youth are our future, as anyone with an understanding of demographics will tell you. Not only does life get more expensive for those of us remaining when these laid-off workers leave, but a sense of dread begins to take over the city in the voids they leave behind. Less people paying property taxes just means those of us left need to take up their slack.
Unlike their parents whom still hold the jobs, this younger demographic of the community is also traditionally the most creative and least averse to taking risks. They are the job-creators and product designers. They are the so-called “creative-class”, and they are the ones that the notion of seniority is pushing out of Winsor in droves. They are also the ones being scouted by the headhunters as being the future of Windsor.
So, what does his do to community who is looking to reinvent itself? Not only does their exodus leave our existing economy treading water (or sinking) but it also makes the transition to an innovation economy that much more difficult. How do you attract the best and the brightest when you can’t even retain your young with the ties that should be keeping them here?
As a single parent of two young children myself, this is exactly the position I currently find myself in. Pushed out of my workplace a year and a half ago, despite 14 years of seniority, I am questioning whether Windsor holds any chance of prosperity for my kids, and it is their future that I am planning for right now - not mine. Do I go out in search of a community with actual plans for a bright and sustainable future, and a playbook that will take them there? Do I remove my kids from their hometown now while they are young, so they can begin to build the ties in a community that has a better chance of providing that prosperous future they will depend on? What if I don’t and we stay put, simply hoping that our city gets its act together? Will they choose to leave me behind when they become adults?
These are questions that are constantly gnawing at me, along with the majority of folks in my situation. Most of them do not have the optimistic view of Windsor that I have ad will choose to leave, pushing me closer to making the same decision. The more folks that make that decision to leave make it more difficult for people like me to stay.
I don’t need to tell you that this is a positive feed-back loop that will surely bring Winsor to its knees.
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Chris, my wife and I had this same debate. The exact same debate that is covered in Richard Florida’s book “Who’s your city?”. He believed that the single most important decision in your life was where you chose to live.
My wife and I eventually decided our situation presented us with the luxury that we could make opportunity wherever we were. It was the lack of opportunity for our son that we were worried about. Our decision to stay in Windsor was based on the fact that when he does finish school and decides on what city he will choose, we may go along with him. That decision is as much as 20 years away and in the mean time we want to set and example for him that regardless of what city he chooses to be in, he needs to be a communitarian in that city.
But Windsor is choosing another course based on the demographics of Windsor and Canada. We are choosing to become a retirement community without an active aging strategy. This is an incredible oxymoronic idea that must be corrected.
Elliot Lake has proven that there is potential opportunity for youth in Windsor becoming a retirement community in the health and caregiver fields. However, without tying it into an active aging strategy like they do in the U.S., it will not have a good chance
http://www.epa.gov/aging/resources/factsheets/build_healthy-factsheet.htm
all the resources and info is there, we just need to get our people to read them.
Puke about Florida. He gives nothing but platitudes. How in the hell do you implement his “ideas”? Because he doesn’t know how to do it nor will he give you an answer. Nor does he state how to pay for it. Which brings me to this. If a third of cities did what Florida wanted there wouldn’t be enough “creative class” to go around.
The sad reality is he is re-hashing the same old crap that has been spouted for decades; Get educated people with great ideas to live in a common area and then watch it grow. Well no shit sherlock! Anyone can tell you that. In fact many real urban planners and those responsible for rebuilding their downtowns know Florida is full of it all the while cashing in on his “seminars”. Keep drinking his kool aid.
I heard on AM800 today that the CAW now has approx. 250,000 members but they have seen the greatest loss of members to those under the age of 35! This back up Chris’s column above.
What is the answer? I don’t know but the status quo is really going to kill the future of this country as young people either move out of regions or out of the country altogether.
What happened to our appreticeship programs (Germany has an outstanding program)? Why not give breaks to companies that hire youth? Lower tuition, invest in small business, R&D…
Dave,
I have been disappointed with Florida’s and senior levels of government seemingly Toronto centric point of view. They are correct if you view the world as static. But the changes going on are unprecedented.
I have a thesis that there are three big changes that will make our future drastically different from our past. These changes are: 1. end of consumerism (credit bubble bust), 2. green shift (peak oil or at present anticipation of peak oil on the other side of the current crisis), 3. end of American Empire (end of U.S. dollar hegemony or decentralize trade and finance). Unbelievable as it may seem, signs are that all three tectonic events are climaxing now.
When viewed thru this new dynamic world, the winners of the past are not necessarily the winners of the future. Or at least, new winners could emerge that get things right now.
So, current winners like Toronto, Chicago and Atlanta are network rich but maladjusted for the future. They have grown in an environment that is inappropriate for the future. For example, in Toronto the tremendous growth of the 905 suburban edge communities will be like a tremendous lead weight on the region going forward (how many more tens of billions are needed to improve Toronto transit into the 905s). Can Ontario afford it?
And because of the unprecedented upheaval going on, old networks may not be as important, and new networks will emerge. So, the built networks do not equal success. Creating a dynamic adaptable environment is the key (connecting to the world by the most efficient method; building, attracting and retaining human capital to the region; and improving quality of life and creating a friendly business environment).
That is why I feel our region has such awesome potential.
I like what Michigan is doing.
-Detroit Aerotropolis (looks like the New Delta Airlines might be the-last-man-standing in this round of airline bankruptcies).
-Large investments in post-secondary education and re-training.
-Focused on identifying new growing industries and offering real dollars to attract them.
-But slow on making the transportation and soft changes.
Ontario, slow but moving in the right direction and with a new found sense of urgency
-Transit and green shift moves.
-Friendlier business environment.
-But placing all eggs in GTA basket and not taking advantage of Michigan’s earlier moves. Ontario could be using the potential that Windsor offers and complimenting the heavy lifting that Michigan is doing to make Windsor a major part of the new Detroit.
The Feds and Windsor are ideologically out of place and like deer in the headlights are frozen wondering what is going on.
-But I have hope they will figure it out sooner rather than later
City cashes in on Final Four
http://www.windsorstar.com/Sports/City+cashes+Final+Four/1467504/story.html
Why is it that we can bring people to our region from around the world but not from across Canada? Why is it that the mayor can go to Germany for the weekend for less than $500 but not to Calgary for the same price and with same flexibility? Why can we attract North American and international events like NCAA and the RedBull Air Races but not Canadian ones? The answer is a failure in connecting the Canadian side of our region? Considering the investments like the casino that governments have made in the region, this oversight boggles the mind.
Come on Ontario and Feds, Michigan is doing its part in trying to get this region moving again – a little neighborly help would be welcomed.
I’m a young engineer (non-automotive related) who grew up in Windsor and decided to stay. No one was more amazed than I was when I managed to land a local full-time engineering job (in my field, no less) on this side of the border. This is an incredibly tough time for young professionals as we debate our next move.
I would love to stay where I grew up and raise a family of my own in Windsor/Essex County, but I’m facing the same questions that Chris outlined above (albeit without the children bit).
For the time being I’ve decided to stick it out, but I am worried that as the area becomes more stagnant, if I am missing on opportunities better offered in other communities to people in my age bracket. If Windsor becomes a retiree-centric community, what appeal is there to younger people? My grandma’s cool and I like to hang out with her, but our activity tastes diverge greatly. I fear that in catering to one demographic extensively, we may alienate other demographics.
At this point in my life I have the luxury of being highly mobile, with no mortgage to tie me to one spot, and no spouse or children to consider in my decisions. And while I’ve made the decision to stay here as long as I can, I am not so sure if this is a sustainable choice.
“Should I stay or should I go?” The Clash, and it is a clash of emotions for our young people. Reverse layoffs in the auto industry isn’t something new, it has been bantered around every time there has been a major recession for exactly the same reason you give above Chris in this city.
When I started on the line at Ford in 1972, there was more grey hair than long hair on the line. It was the first mass hiring by Ford in what seemed a generation ever since they packed up and moved to Oakville. Then the first oil crisis hit in 1973 and the layoffs began, ticking off the last in, us youngins, while the oldsters kept on working and the same scenarios came up. Us newbies were in debt because we thought that we had made it to heaven, started families, bought houses, cars and everything else in between as we thought the mana would flow like honey.
This time, the great now of our lives in this city, is over. It is a great possibility that we could lose the auto industry altogether in this city and the city and its citizens aren’t prepared for that eventuality. We have no experience or conception, that we could lose the auto industry in this city. It’s transitional, it’s cyclical we all say to ourselves from the mayor on down, in the irrational belief like religion that the auto industry will ride into town and save us. Or now, some “green” thing or other industry. There is more religious faith in this city right now than in Rome.
Mark above is also right, this city hasn’t anything prepared, no “feasibility” study, no economic strategy, no action plan to make Windsor, Essex a retirement capital of Canada. In one of my news blogs, I posted a link to Aging and infrastructure study/report but I think nobody read it. It details what is needed if we are to cater to the aging in a city. Even our library systems are missing out with nothing in planning for the retirement/aging community that is fast coming to us and I’m one of them.
“The youth are our future,” ya, ya, ya! This has been nothing but lip service in this city as we well know for over the last eighty years, it was the dream of every kid to follow his father wishes into the factory and onto the line. Why do you need an education. When in fact, Windsor’s biggest export for the last eighty years has been its intelligent, entrepreneurial and creative class that have been humbled, ignored and abused in and by this city because they didn’t make tangible items and the big bucks that they rubbed into everybody else’s face.
Chris’s fears for himself and his kids are right and daunting. Call centres aren’t high paying jobs. All this infrastructure stimulus money that HASN’T COME TO WINDSOR YET! will only give jobs to less than forty per cent of the population, while the other sixty per cent, women and university/college students and OUR children are left out in the cold. Infrastructure jobs are terminal jobs and a one time shot at building something and are predominated by men. There is nothing for Chris nor his kids in the billions that are coming. Windsor is still planning and building in the late 20th century with no thought to the long term future of this city. Canals, aerotropolises, road widening, road building are all one shot construction projects with no guarantee that if we build it anybody will come. Driving trucks, although a skilled job, isn’t a high paying job, repacking vegetables isn’t a high paying job, loading and unloading those trucks isn’t a high paying job. “Shovel ready,” only tells me that the plans have been around for a long, long, long time in Windsor. Emptying the bed pans of the aged, isn’t a high paying job, nor is cooking their food.
Heck, this city doesn’t even use fibre optic distribution networks to link the various sites of its own city corporation sites! And there is no plan to wire this city from one end to the other, fibre optics lines are the new roads of the creative class, they are electronic nomads, where here and the now is anywhere they are at, at that moment. Not stuck to one spot on a factory line or a cubicle. But this city hasn’t even addressed that in their master plan(s) The status quo is still the big factory, ever widening roads, even larger parking lots and sprawl. There has been no statement from this city on its sprawling habit, that is the problem of living in a geographically flat terrain, the horizon appears limitless. We need some mountains to hem us in!
The one main reason that I got a graduate degree in Library and Information Science, to be a recognized professional Librarian, from an American Library Association certified school, is that I can travel the world and work anywhere there is a librarian’s position. Under NAFTA’s professional class designation, I have equal rights, regardless of citizenship to apply for a job in the United States and be treated equally and fairly. I don’t have to stay here or anywhere. And the way this city treats and funds its own library system (the soft infrastructure, along with education, the arts et al,) going is always on my mind as it is other younger librarians. And if you think it is just about books, I am the sole administrator and chief problem solver of a million dollar Integrated Library (computer) System.
Juxtaposeur is already addressing the main theme of this posting and has the nagging fear in the background of his mind to either to fight or flight. And the young people I meet everyday in the library have exactly the same thoughts but are more definite in their feelings…they are leaving! Our mayor and the majority of city council are still only addressing the status quo and present, not the long term future.
“Should I stay or should I go?” Is the number one question in Windsor and Essex county today. And frankly I don’t see anything coming from city hall or our elected city officials to answer or address those questions.
I posted this article below in the Chris’s blog “What makes a good Politician,” this week but I think that is very reflective of Windsor now!
we elect the sort of lowest common-denominator councillors”
http://www.thestar.com/GTA/Columnist/article/612966
The good news is that public transit is back on the agenda. The bad news is that cities aren’t.
No issue facing the Greater Toronto Area [sic] Windsor, means more to our future than transit. And yet no issue better reveals how “civic governments are obstacles to that future.”
Simply put, cities are no longer up to the task of running themselves, if they ever were. Partly, that’s because we have created an especially cumbersome governance structure in Ontario. “Partly, it’s because we elect the sort of lowest common-denominator councillors who pander to our worst instincts.”
The hard truth is that in the 21st century, the “parochial attitude they bring to the table no longer suffices. They might argue that they are elected to do the bidding of their voters, but sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.”
At this point in Toronto’s history [sic] Windsor’s, it’s painfully clear the NIMBY (Not in my backyard) hordes are their own worst enemy – and the city’s. Given that most city councillors have no interest in taking them on, it’s up to the province to do what must be done…..”
There isn’t a leader in or for Windsor right now! That’s elected!
That’s why November 8, 2010 will be a pivitol year in the history of our city.
I don’t think very many people know what’s on the line when that date comes around. Think about it - the people we hire to run our city, for four more long years, have a choice to make. Will they continue with the status quo (likely) of embrasing paternalism and mega-projects to swoop in and save our city, or do we do a complete house cleaning, from top to bottom, and start over.
We have a tremendous investment in infrastructure here that I am loathe to turn my back on, but if Windsor’s electorate chooses candidates who insist oncontinuing to ooze out into the suburbs when we can’t even afford the roads, sewers and water mains we have, or if they choose to turn their backs on our local, independant retailers by rezoning for more-and-more big-box development in our hinterlands, I will be joining the hordes of people looking to greener pastures outside of Windsor’s municipal boundaries.
November 8, 2010 (mark that date on your calendar) is a make or break date for our community. Let’s give it the attention it deserves.
Now you’re talking Chris! It’s time to make city council nervous and put some new blood in there. The best way to make them pay attention to what you’re saying is to start theatening *their* job safety.