Sad stories from co-workers who are losing their jobs....

[wartrace]

One young guy in my area was just served with divorce papers last month, he is fighting for visitation rights with his three young children. This week he was told he will lose his job in March, with only five years of service he will get five weeks of severance pay.

Earl is sixty years old, he has had two heart attacks & his wife has cancer. He also has a mortgage payment of 1300 dollars a month. He said that in seven months he would be on the street, in seven months no place to live. He is a Vietnam vet who served in the infantry. It is a sad thing when a guy who gave so much could also lose so much.

Another guy has a kid with kidney problems, he will find out next week if it is cancer or kidney disease. His insurance is going to run out in the middle of this ordeal.

A married couple who both work there, they bought into the real estate bubble. They only make 130,000 as a couple but bought a 500,000 home with only ten percent down. They sunk everything they have into their home & vehicles. With no income there will be no home or vehicles.

We have somewhere around 850 people leaving by May, the remaining (700) to follow as the plant winds down. There are that many sad stories, that many families about to go through the wringer. Families will become homeless, vehicles and homes will be lost, people will die due to the loss of health benefits & the means to pay a co-pay.

This is happening ALL OVER AMERICA. It really doesn't matter who is to blame, we can leave that for the history books. We need access to health care for every American at an affordable price. Health care should not be a "business", there should be no profit motive or shareholders of health care providers.

We need to get money into the hands of individual taxpayers. A tax cut would not help most of us but what WOULD save the taxpayers is a "bank bailout" sized payment in cash. They spent 100 billion on the last rebate? 700 on the banks? That would be a 4200 dollar payment per single, 8400 per couple. That money WOULD be circulating in our economy instead of sitting on balance sheets at a bank. It wouldn't be used for a "bonus" to executives either.


We need to look at Nafta and what we can do to level the playing field. Mexican workers MUST be brought up to OUR level, we should not be forced to meet those workers on our way down. If we are going to have "free trade" we need to ensure the countries we trade with has similar labor costs.

It's getting bad out there.

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. Thanks for the stories.

[aquart]

2. Send this exactly as written to every elected official you've got.

And your local paper, magazines...

[Skittles]

3. we need to STOP SENDING JOBS OVERSEAS

[OhioChick]

13. Bingo!

Read about people who have lost their jobs overseas, or had to train their replacements.

Look Into Their Eyes

These people lost high-tech jobs to low-wage countries. Try telling them that offshoring is a good thing in the long run.

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/81/offshore_profiles.html

[Tangerine LaBamba]

4. Horrible

Thank you for posting this. It should be sent to every elected representative in Washington. Not that they'll listen, but you do what you can do.

Every day, I'm reminded of how everyone laughed at Ross Perot when he said NAFTA was going to make that "giant sucking sound," and how right he was. Remember that?

We have to rework the laws to give tax breaks to companies who keep their jobs in the United States. We need to undo all the crap that's been done to the American worker/taxpayer since Ronnie Raygun (and I still can't believe he was elected President - TWICE!) took office. It was all wrong, all of it.

[terisan]

5. We have been given no cogent explanation for the bank bailout--your plan seems to have merit

Throwing more money at failed banks will be unlikely to help the people. It will pay their overhead and maybe give them some investment capital to use overseas.

The major part of the stimulus seems to be aimed at certain corporations at at state budgets and at universities. I do not have confidence that these entities will actually achieve what is needed.. I am for bailing out the people not the corporations

[alexandria]

6. Do you have a link?NT

[NMDemDist2]

8. that was the link, he's telling the story of his co-workers n/t

[alexandria]

11. Trust but verify..NT

[Ecumenist]

9. Alexandra, the OP doesn't need a link because

he recounting his own experience, not something written in th emedia. Welcome to DU BTW, right glad to meetcha!!:hi:

[wartrace]

12. How's this link?

http://www.layoffdaily.com/

It is sad when there is a website that is devoted to the daily layoffs happening here. Millions of stories like those I have passed on from coworkers I have been talking to. I am going from 65k a year to 14,200 on unemployment myself. I'm hoping to ride out the depression on that alone, my fixed costs are low & I have the ability to feed myself using the resources on my property.

[earth mom]

15. A link for a personal story?

C'mon on now-you know better than that. :eyes:

[Ecumenist]

7. Lawd have Mercy... And it's a damn shame...

Thanks for telling the truth..painful, naked, stark and unvarnished though it may be. BTW, A belated welcome to DU, Wartrace... right glad and honored to see yet another eloquent voice to DU...:hi: :patriot:

[AllyCat]

10. Not for profit health care means no insurance companies. EVER

Out out with them. There is not one thing wrong with "socialized medicine". It is civil, caring, quality medicine that puts people and their doctors in charge of their medical care, not paper-pushing, tax-payer dollar-pocketing insurance execs with NO health care knowledge.

Universal, single-payer will help get us out of this economic mess too. It creates jobs and prevents illness. It's the right thing to do.

So sorry to everyone getting hit with this. Lets get writing, marching, calling, whatever legal means to get the message out to our fellow citizens, the media, our reps...

[ChromeFoundry]

14. K&R n/t

[suede1]

16. K & R

[murielm99]

17. People will die.

The republicans who oppose Obama's plans to fix the mess need to know that.

They will die on the streets as the new homeless.

They will die due to lack of medical care.

They will die when the commit suicide because they cannot care for their families.

They will die when the desperate go into convenience stores and rob them of a few dollars.

Children will die.

Haven't enough Americans died in the Iraq war? Haven't enough Iraqis died? People will die.

[wartrace]

18. That's what Republicans do best.

They kill off us "common" folks.