"The real issue is the economy."
In Pa., Unemployed Workers Say Nominees Are Missing the Point
Victims of Recent Company Closing Seek Focus on Economy
By Evelyn Nieves
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 13, 2004; Page A06
KINGSTON, Pa. -- The other day, during what would have been first shift at the plant, Rose Ziminsky invited two of her former co-workers over for lunch. Then on the spur of the moment, she called four more. They all came right over.
Lunch took up half the afternoon -- more time than the old friends had spent at lunch on a weekday in years. They could have sat at Ziminsky's table for days, rehashing the loss of their jobs at the Techneglas factory and railing at the politicians for not talking enough about how they plan to fix the economy. But they felt uneasy about not having to watch a clock.
Paul Beretsky said President Bush "failed the average American." Like Ziminsky, he plans to vote for John F. Kerry.
"I don't know what to do with myself," said Paul Beretsky, 54, a widower who lives near Ziminsky in this Wilkes-Barre suburb of white clapboard houses and green back yards. "I've been going to work at the plant for over 35 years."
Techneglas Inc., which made glass for television sets, shut down in August and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. With that announcement, nearly 700 people here who had devoted decades to a factory that consumed their holidays and weekends and babies' growing years were knocked off their footing in the nation's middle class. They made good wages -- as much as $21 an hour -- that are not easy to replace, and the fate of their pensions and health care coverage is in doubt.
Now they are becoming, to their horror, part of the struggling class of Americans that Republicans and Democrats have been arguing over how to help. The fortunes, and the discontent, of that class have intensified the campaign combat in battlegrounds such as Pennsylvania and Ohio, where voters, decided or not, say they want to hear more about how the presidential candidates will create jobs.
Both campaigns, during their frequent forays through Pennsylvania, have stopped in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area in the past several weeks. The Democratic vice presidential nominee, Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), was in Wilkes-Barre in August and in Scranton on Friday. Vice President Cheney visited Wilkes-Barre last month. President Bush held an invitation-only rally in Wilkes-Barre last Wednesday.
Among the laid-off, Edwards won points on his first trip for visiting with three former Techneglas workers, and on his second for repeating a pledge to end tax credits for companies that take jobs overseas and to provide incentives for companies to remain in the United States. But the workers, always scrutinizing the speeches for solutions to their job crisis, have usually been disappointed.
"Get off the war already," said Trina Moss, who, at 47, lost the job she held at Techneglas for 25 years. "The real issue is the economy."
In announcing that it was closing, Techneglas, a unit of Nippon Electric Glass Co. of Japan, said it will open a plant in Taiwan and expand production in South Korea and Japan. It blamed overseas competition and declining demand for closings that threw out of work its 670 employees in northeastern Pennsylvania, plus 382 in Columbus, Ohio.
The closing has politicized the company's former employees in ways they never expected. Like patients with rare cancers, they have become insatiable for information on their condition. They watch the news religiously. They clip newspaper stories, surf the Web, send letters to elected officials, hold meetings for hours. They know the statistics: Unemployment in the Wilkes-Barre area has reached 7.5 percent, compared with 5.4 percent nationally. They note that in nearby Duryea, Schott North America Inc., which makes glass for vision products, laid off 80 employees last month.
Bush sold his tax cuts as a job-creating measure, and on the stump he has vowed, "I'm not going to be satisfied until everybody who wants to work can find a job." His Democratic challenger, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), has promised to create 10 million jobs in his first four years. Ziminsky and her friends say they are not satisfied that either candidate has given the jobs crisis here its due. But they also say they do not know a single former Techneglas employee who is planning to vote for Bush.
Like their union leaders, they blame the administration for making it easy for companies to close their doors here and open them overseas. Not that the Democrats did not have an edge here already. Wilkes-Barre (pop. 42,000), the seat of Luzerne County, and Scranton (pop. 76,400), 18 miles north in Lackawanna County, are Democratic strongholds.
Vice President Al Gore beat Bush by 10,000 votes in Luzerne County and more than 22,000 votes in Lackawanna County. But the region, dominated by Irish, Polish and Italian Americans, is also very Catholic and socially conservative -- abortion is a big issue -- and has been considered up for grabs on Nov. 2.
For the former Techneglas workers, who blame outsourcing for the loss of their livelihoods, concerns about national security and opposition to abortion are trumped by their concerns over the economy. They are angry at Bush over the cost of the Iraq war and annoyed at the lack of attention they say he has given to their plight. |
