Where the jobs of these workshops may go: was RE: Res2013-13

Hi Kevin and All,

When we were organizing the drapery factory where I worked, the boss came to
me and said, "Carl, if we are forced to allow the Teamsters to organize the
employees, we'll simply move our factory to Portland, Oregon. That will
mean about 120 women will be out of a job. Do you want that on your head?"
I mumbled something at the time, but later I went to the boss and said that
after thinking about it I found it interesting that he would put the loss of
all of the factory workers jobs on my head, but for years he had headed a
factory that paid the absolute minimum wage to the workers, knowing that
they could not do more than barely exist.
Of course he said this really did bother him, but his hands were tied. He
had to pay what the head office back East dictated to him.
Each day during coffee and lunch breaks I would watch many of these women
line up at the telephone and call the various collection agencies and
landlords and grocers, begging for a few more days to try to pay their
debts. Their husbands and boy friends had abandoned them, and usually a
herd of children, and even cleaned out their bank accounts.
So I tried to organize the factory in order to force a higher wage. The
boss, who said he cared about their plight, lived in an exclusive community
on Mercer Island and drove a brand new Lincoln. He would never put action
to his claim of caring. Risk losing what he had? Not for people he could
not relate to.
And this is where we find ourselves as disabled people. Especially those of
us who are multiply disabled.
The bosses do not relate to us or to our needs. And even if they
understand, they will not give up their comfort to join us in fighting for
dignity and a living income.
The question should not be how to maintain a system that puts so little
money in the pockets of some of our people while saying that they are
actually happy just feeling productive.
The question should always be, how do we establish a system that provides
both a living income and activities that allow the individual to feel of
value.
Excusing the present system will never change it. Just as my boss never
changed how he ran his factory after our efforts to organize failed.

Carl Jarvis

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin Minor" <kminor@windstream.net>
To: <acb-l@acb.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2013 9:31 PM
Subject: [acb-l] Where the jobs of these workshops may go: was RE:
Res2013-13


Hi.



If things go the way they usually do, these jobs that the disabled do will
be outsourced overseas. I remember a law that was passed in the 1990's,
where a luxury tax was charged to those who bought yachts. What did these
people who purchased the yachts do? They got them from foreign
manufacturers, and the Americans who built these yachts lost their job, at
least it was significant enough for Congress to repeal the tax, and
interestingly the media didn't get as excited about this as they did when
the tax went into effect.



Here's another example of supply and demand. The New Jersey legislature put
a high tax on the sale of big trucks. What happened? The truckers got
their new trucks in Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, if I remember my facts,
didn't sell a single truck.



Just my thoughts.



Kevin Minor, Lexington, KY

kminor@windstream.net




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