My parents returned from World War II when they were 29. They had met in an Army hospital in Italy. He the wounded lieutenant. She the Army nurse. Promoted to captain as the war wound down, Mom always outranked Dad. He gratefully served her.
By age 30 I was created. My sister soon followed. My dad found work at the Bigelow Sanford Carpet Company as a “draftsman” - a skill he had learned in trade school. He designed looms - machines that wove or tufted carpeting. He used a protractor, a slide rule and a pencil on a piece of paper.
One of Dad’s last big assignments was assisting in and directing the disassembly of the carpet machinery at it historic home in Connecticut and the reassembly of the machines in Georgia and South Carolina. Thompsonville was just one of many northern towns that lost its primary employer to the cheaper non union labor of the south. My parents were to follow - if Dad was to be employed. About 50 Bigelow families landed in Greenville. Thompsonville became a ghost town.
Bigelow had a storied history. Founded in the 1840’s it merged with other makers and was a premier producer of America’s carpeting. It provided good jobs for a lot of people. In 1967 Bigelow was acquired by Sperry and Hutchinson (S&H Green Stamps).
In 1981, its senior executives purchased Bigelow from S&H. The executives sold it to Fieldcrest Cannon, Inc. in 1986. In 1993, it was acquired by Mohawk Industries.
My dad retired from Bigelow in the mid 80’s. Somehow, along the way, my dad’s pension was lost. Poof. Gone. 30 plus years of loyalty and hard work and….nothing.
There is a government program to rescue workers in this scenario. But doesn’t it seem morally repugnant that as executives extracted profits out of their company and settled into comfy if not luxurious retirements, that the workers who made the whole thing function were treated as an afterthought and disposable? Why weren’t those pensions as important as the executives’ stock and bond portfolios?
Fortunately for Mom and Dad, Uncle Sam did help. However, according to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) Insurance Data Book 1998, the coverage rate for private sector pensions in the 1980s was approximately 50% - so Dad got half of what was promised. Something at least. But let’s just say their lifestyle took a big hit. Very big.
The results of that frustration were expressed in the last election. People voted for change. Even though, during the last four years, enormous strides were made for the economy as a whole, many people wanted to “throw the bums out”. Because both political parties have ignored the working class. They have pandered but they haven’t delivered. The efforts of the Biden administration are to be lauded. Huge investments were made that led to record breaking job creation. But it was too little, too late.
We paint the Republicans as the fools and villains who are rewarding the oligarchs who have benefited from the gift of tax evasion. The “poor and middle class people” in “fly over country” send money to the billionaires with their votes. Bizarre irony.
But Democrats, when in power, have made some fatal errors. Clinton signed NAFTA that led to millions of jobs being outsourced, companies moving their plants to countries where labor is cheap and environmental protections are less costly. There were more “Thompsonvilles” all across the country as the major employer deserted their towns for cheaper labor. Of course, it’s more than the loss of factory jobs. It’s all the supporting businesses in the “ghost towns”. Restaurants, hardware stores, every business you can imagine that benefited from that factory income.
Obama bailed out major financial institutions during the Great Recession. None of the con artist executives paid a price for devastating the world economy. Many received big bonuses! And we did very little for the victims of the housing crisis - the average Americans who signed up for the mortgages. Too many still owe more than what their home is worth. I liked Obama more than Clinton, but he thought by saving big banks and insurers it would trickle down. Meh. Not really. He did save the auto industry. Lots of points for that. All those loans to “Detroit” were paid back to the Feds.
It’s time for a financial revolution. And it is long overdue. Democrats in an effort to be reasonable, to compromise, to work across the aisle - have lost the working class. We have been afraid of being labeled “extremists” or “socialists”. It’s time to stop being afraid. It’s time to be angry. MAGA brings WMDs to the fight. We bring a pen knife.
We worry about being labeled as radical extremists but “Extremism” is about take the oath of office. Fascism has won a Trifecta of an election as we have been trying to be joyful and positive and not irritate this group or that group. We forgot the hollowed out formerly middle class.
I am a free enterprise capitalist business guy. But a civilized society must regulate companies and require them to provide the basics of a decent retirement. Or we should replace or compliment the private system with an expanded public one. I leave the details and compromises to better educated others. There is plenty of money to do this. Just ask the carpet executives - or Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg. Or the Waltons who have over $400 billion. Yet full time Walmart workers qualify for Medicaid and SNAP benefits (food stamps). Taxpayers keep workers fed and healthy while the employer wallows in unprecedented wealth? Isn’t that socialism for the rich?
If you disagree with my belief that the richest nation to have ever existed should have a reasonable retirement system, perhaps you don’t give a shit about older people. Or you don’t think you will get old. Be patient. It happens slowly and then all of a sudden. You will understand.
https://enfieldhistoricalsociety.org/old-town-hall/the-carpet-industry/
https://www.pbgc.gov/
How taxpayers subsidize the rich
Bill, this is an EXCELLENT piece and covers much of what has happened in US industry over the past 70 years. I wonder about the carpet industry in Amsterdam, NY and will have to read it's history. Amsterdam was the closest big city to us when we moved to the Hamlet of Glen and it was known as the 'rug city' back in the day.
Personal note: my father had two part-time moonlighting jobs rendering architectural drawings for companies building offices etc. way before CAD was inventented. His regular day job was as an art teacher in Springfield public schools.
My sympathies to your parents who took an awful financial hit in retirement. This SHOULD NOT HAPPEN and we will fight against oligarchs and mealymouthed Dems who try appeasement or 'triangulation' as they called it in Clinton's time.
Spot on, Bill. You are absolutely right. Both parties - or at least their executive wings - have caved in to the wealthiest. I may be wrong in lumping them all to the category of GREED, but instead of advancing humanity or the Country or the Planet they have given all to the greediest of the greedy. What's worse are those who admire them. There is nothing admirable about Musk, Thiel, Ramaswamy, or any of the other 868 billionaires. As a group they are the most evil and greedy of the species Homo sapiens and therefore the most useless, I wish none of them well, in fact I wish the Earth would open up and suck them all into the fiery inferno of the core.