when you found out you’d been hired by
GE what was your reaction I didn’t
believe it at first it really didn’t
sink in until I got the first paycheck
and I thought I’m really in here and
you’d walk across the parking lot look
all the way down the Avenue at all these
antique hundred-year-old buildings and
it really felt like you were part of
something that what Kevin green has been
a part of is an iconic company that has
built the majority of North America’s
locomotives for over a century without
these massive machines pulling freight
around the country the explosion of
American industry would have stopped in
its tracks
Kevin’s married no kids and he’s been
working as a machinist at GE for 15
years now we’d always had ups and downs
in the locomotive business there was
layoffs sometimes but then they would
call people back but this time it really
this one was beating about 47 and that
little tin railroad station was built
here in Erie Kevin’s friend Dottie
Rhodes also works at the plant after
working all day and of dinner the back
but the threat of more layoffs makes it
almost impossible to unwind last summer
their close friend Denny died of a heart
attack after he got laid off from GE and
you have to think that the stress and
not knowing what you’re gonna do where
the good paychecks are gonna come from I
had to be a contributing factor I don’t
think they give one whit about the
worker I don’t think they give one what
about the community that the workers are
in I mean it’s just demoralizing I don’t
see any happy ending well what are you
gonna do I want to go to school and take
up a degree in international business
because if you can’t beat I mean might
as well join them things are more
complicated for Kevin I don’t think I
could pass a test right now my
concentration is zilch he’s been
diagnosed with a severe case of Lyme
disease that’s been expensive to treat I
have no idea there was anything in the
world besides dementia or Alzheimer’s or
something that could do this to a person
so let’s say Kevin you lose your job
your Lyme disease gets worse what are
you gonna do I don’t know it’s looming
you know it’s coming you’re gonna get
the tap on the shoulder you don’t know
where that must be really stressful it
is
it is damn cold here Scott do you ever
get used to this actually this is about
as warm as I dress in the winter really
Scott Slauson is president of the local
union representing GE
workers like a famous diner what the
hell died for with an O yes this is the
only area in the world you’ll see this
in G’s heyday they had as many as 22
thousand people working inside those
gates and today there’s less than three
thousand it’s just a constant bleed of
employees out of this plan some jobs
have been lost to automation others to
globalization but in recent years
they’ve been lost to the Lone Star State
lured by huge tax breaks ge built a
locomotive plant in Fort Worth that’s
non-union and workers there are paid
less
we watched basically good jobs being
ripped out of Pennsylvania given to the
state of Texas and you’re talking a
multi-billion dollar corporation that
really doesn’t need the tax breaks these
decisions affect the entire community an
estimated 1 in 11 jobs in Erie County
depend on the plant there’s a lot of
fabrication shops and electrical shops
that do a lot of work for us so it’s a
massive ripple effect ge insists it’s
laying off workers to stay competitive
especially as countries like China take
a bigger share of the market when you
have a business that’s running a 25%
profits it’s hard to tell the employees
we need more money out of your pocket
because we’re not going to be able to
pay the dividend to the shareholders you
know Angie’s not the only one you have a
lot of companies that are this way they
thought about competitiveness
it’s about union busting Scott believes
the decline of unions is a big part of
the problem 50 years ago a third of the
US workforce was unionized well stand up
and fight back it’s down to 11 percent
today and the gulf between the rich and
everyone else is
wider than ever before I’ll see what he
can’t get you out of that talking back
in the client light but Scott’s members
make two and a half times more than the
average salary Karin eerie about 70
grand plus benefit there is an argument
that global competition has put a lot of
pressure on these corporations sure and
that unions got too powerful they got
too greedy and they got lazy what’s your
reaction when people say you guys make
too much an hour what do you do for a
living that’s what I ask we handcraft
a four hundred and sixty thousand pound
locomotive
there’s a lot of pride in building
something that you know is going to run
for 20 years pulling freight across the
United States and when you lose that
sense of pride sometimes you lose that
sense of purpose and that’s what we’re
seeing people turn to drugs and alcohol
and some just say and killed himself
sure we’ve had quite a few suicides just
from our workers 7:00 o’clock on a
Friday night it was the middle of the
shift and we were working and the
machine I was on faced this fellas
machine I looked over where he was
working and he was hanging on the crane
he had a choker around his neck his
knees were bent and he was not moving
and he was about as white as your paper
on the counter and I couldn’t believe
what I was looking at in 2017 eerie
suicide rate reached an all-time high
the average victim a 47 year old white
male but the problem isn’t unique to
this city
a recent study revealed a shocking spike
in the death rate for middle-aged white
working-class Americans caused by
alcoholism drug overdoses and suicides I
think a lot of people are feeling that
despair especially if you had a
lucrative job and you’re facing a change
where you’re going to go back into
living hand-to-mouth like you were
before they don’t know what the future
holds I don’t know what it holds either
want more exclusive content from America
inside out well just click one of these videos floating next to me
GE what was your reaction I didn’t
believe it at first it really didn’t
sink in until I got the first paycheck
and I thought I’m really in here and
you’d walk across the parking lot look
all the way down the Avenue at all these
antique hundred-year-old buildings and
it really felt like you were part of
something that what Kevin green has been
a part of is an iconic company that has
built the majority of North America’s
locomotives for over a century without
these massive machines pulling freight
around the country the explosion of
American industry would have stopped in
its tracks
Kevin’s married no kids and he’s been
working as a machinist at GE for 15
years now we’d always had ups and downs
in the locomotive business there was
layoffs sometimes but then they would
call people back but this time it really
this one was beating about 47 and that
little tin railroad station was built
here in Erie Kevin’s friend Dottie
Rhodes also works at the plant after
working all day and of dinner the back
but the threat of more layoffs makes it
almost impossible to unwind last summer
their close friend Denny died of a heart
attack after he got laid off from GE and
you have to think that the stress and
not knowing what you’re gonna do where
the good paychecks are gonna come from I
had to be a contributing factor I don’t
think they give one whit about the
worker I don’t think they give one what
about the community that the workers are
in I mean it’s just demoralizing I don’t
see any happy ending well what are you
gonna do I want to go to school and take
up a degree in international business
because if you can’t beat I mean might
as well join them things are more
complicated for Kevin I don’t think I
could pass a test right now my
concentration is zilch he’s been
diagnosed with a severe case of Lyme
disease that’s been expensive to treat I
have no idea there was anything in the
world besides dementia or Alzheimer’s or
something that could do this to a person
so let’s say Kevin you lose your job
your Lyme disease gets worse what are
you gonna do I don’t know it’s looming
you know it’s coming you’re gonna get
the tap on the shoulder you don’t know
where that must be really stressful it
is
it is damn cold here Scott do you ever
get used to this actually this is about
as warm as I dress in the winter really
Scott Slauson is president of the local
union representing GE
workers like a famous diner what the
hell died for with an O yes this is the
only area in the world you’ll see this
in G’s heyday they had as many as 22
thousand people working inside those
gates and today there’s less than three
thousand it’s just a constant bleed of
employees out of this plan some jobs
have been lost to automation others to
globalization but in recent years
they’ve been lost to the Lone Star State
lured by huge tax breaks ge built a
locomotive plant in Fort Worth that’s
non-union and workers there are paid
less
we watched basically good jobs being
ripped out of Pennsylvania given to the
state of Texas and you’re talking a
multi-billion dollar corporation that
really doesn’t need the tax breaks these
decisions affect the entire community an
estimated 1 in 11 jobs in Erie County
depend on the plant there’s a lot of
fabrication shops and electrical shops
that do a lot of work for us so it’s a
massive ripple effect ge insists it’s
laying off workers to stay competitive
especially as countries like China take
a bigger share of the market when you
have a business that’s running a 25%
profits it’s hard to tell the employees
we need more money out of your pocket
because we’re not going to be able to
pay the dividend to the shareholders you
know Angie’s not the only one you have a
lot of companies that are this way they
thought about competitiveness
it’s about union busting Scott believes
the decline of unions is a big part of
the problem 50 years ago a third of the
US workforce was unionized well stand up
and fight back it’s down to 11 percent
today and the gulf between the rich and
everyone else is
wider than ever before I’ll see what he
can’t get you out of that talking back
in the client light but Scott’s members
make two and a half times more than the
average salary Karin eerie about 70
grand plus benefit there is an argument
that global competition has put a lot of
pressure on these corporations sure and
that unions got too powerful they got
too greedy and they got lazy what’s your
reaction when people say you guys make
too much an hour what do you do for a
living that’s what I ask we handcraft
a four hundred and sixty thousand pound
locomotive
there’s a lot of pride in building
something that you know is going to run
for 20 years pulling freight across the
United States and when you lose that
sense of pride sometimes you lose that
sense of purpose and that’s what we’re
seeing people turn to drugs and alcohol
and some just say and killed himself
sure we’ve had quite a few suicides just
from our workers 7:00 o’clock on a
Friday night it was the middle of the
shift and we were working and the
machine I was on faced this fellas
machine I looked over where he was
working and he was hanging on the crane
he had a choker around his neck his
knees were bent and he was not moving
and he was about as white as your paper
on the counter and I couldn’t believe
what I was looking at in 2017 eerie
suicide rate reached an all-time high
the average victim a 47 year old white
male but the problem isn’t unique to
this city
a recent study revealed a shocking spike
in the death rate for middle-aged white
working-class Americans caused by
alcoholism drug overdoses and suicides I
think a lot of people are feeling that
despair especially if you had a
lucrative job and you’re facing a change
where you’re going to go back into
living hand-to-mouth like you were
before they don’t know what the future
holds I don’t know what it holds either
want more exclusive content from America
inside out well just click one of these videos floating next to me
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