Marketplace of Ideas Blog

I am neither an employee of Mercury Marine nor a member of International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local 1947. But if I did work at Mercury, something like this might be going through my head right now:

What am I going to do now?

I stuck with my union brothers and sisters, just like the union leaders asked me to, and voted against changing our union contract. After all, a contract is a contract. A lot of us don’t believe what Mercury is saying about the economy. And how much is Mercury president Mark Schwabero willing to give up?

This isn’t a very fun place to work these days. The weeks running up to the vote have been particularly unpleasant and stressful in the plant. And we’re getting a lot of dirty looks these days from the salaried staff. (For that matter, in driving my truck, which has a Mercury bumper sticker on it, I’ve been seeing gestures and hearing a lot of shouting, which I assume is directed at me, although I can’t really hear what they’re saying.) It ended up that we were voting on not just our jobs, but their jobs too.

Those of us who are left have survived a couple waves of layoffs. (And anyone who comes back from layoff will be coming back at $13 an hour instead of the $20 an hour we make.) There’s a bunch of people that say that a job at lower pay beats no job. There’s a bunch of people who believe that Mercury’s going to leave anyway, and we have to stand up to corporate greed all over this country — Bernie Madoff and companies getting bailed out with our tax dollars. Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.

So we rejected the contract changes overwhelmingly. That didn’t take very long for Mercury to announce they’re pulling almost all of their manufacturing jobs by the time the contract expires in 2012. (“Zero to 200” sounds like it’ll end up closer to zero than 200 jobs left.)

A lot of us didn’t believe Mercury was serious about leaving. Most of us didn’t read all of the contract proposal — how many congressmen read the laws they’re voting on? — but a lot of us said that this is just a way for Mercury to pay us less before they leave anyway. Merc was planning on moving jobs up here? Nobody told us that, and I’m not sure we would have believed them anyway. That’s the way it is with unions — it’s us against them.

What am I going to do now?

I have to have a new job before Mercury starts making layoffs. I bet they’ll start laying off people this year yet. I’m not sure how I’ll be affected by that — I’m not new here, but I’m certainly not close to retirement.

Thanks to working at Mercury all these years, I have a house, I have a boat and motor thanks to my employee discount, and I have a truck to pull the boat. Of course, technically the bank owns most of the house yet, and for that matter they own a lot of the boat and the truck too. Our kids will be going to college in a few years. And, you know, our finances aren’t perfect.

I could sell the boat and the truck. But I bet a lot of people are going to do that. And how long is the money from selling my boat and my truck going to last once I pay off the loan balances?

We could sell the house. I’ve put a lot of work into our house — it gave me something to do when the plant was closed — but we could sell the house. But we have to live somewhere. I read about decreasing home values, and I bet a lot of people working in the plant are going to do the same thing. Maybe it’s too late to sell a house in Fond du Lac.

My wife said she’d support whatever decision I make. But in the same breath she asks how we can feed our kids if I don’t have a job. She works full-time too, which is how we can afford our house and my boat and my truck, I guess.

The business people in Fond du Lac say up to 11,000 jobs statewide are affected by Mercury Marine. I don’t care about them. I care about me and my family. I bet they’re not planning on a seven-year wage freeze like they were asking me to accept. Keep the job you have and look for another job — easy for them to say. Are they going to hire me?

Who is going to hire me? Mercury is the only place I’ve ever worked. I’m a blue collar guy. I come from a blue collar family. We work with our hands, and we like to see the results of our work. I still like seeing “Mercury” in white letters on the black outboards we put together when I put my boat in the water.

Let’s face it: Mercury is like a lot of places — some people really work hard, some people work sort of hard, and some people do as little as possible. I think I’m in the first group, and it ticks me off to think that my job is going to go away just like the lazy people’s jobs are going to go away. But that’s what you get with a union, I guess — everybody gets treated the same. At least if I get laid off, I won’t have to pay the union dues.

I bet there are a lot of employers who won’t hire anybody who works — or, in a couple years, used to work — at Mercury. They probably figure that anybody who voted against keeping their job is someone they don’t want working for them. And they probably don’t want somebody who’s big into the union working there either.

We signed a contract. How is it our fault that the economy took a dive? How is it our fault that people aren’t buying boat motors? We put together a quality product. So what if people are spending less of their disposable income because of the economy? You’re telling me they’re going to give up boating? You’re telling me they’re going to give up recreation?

I guess we could move to Oklahoma and try to get a job at the MerCruiser plant. I bet they don’t have the work ethic we have in Wisconsin. But there’s no guarantee they’d hire me. After all, they’re going to Oklahoma in part because they’re nonunion down here. And I don’t really want to live in Oklahoma — I was born here and our family still lives here. I know people move for their jobs all the time now, but do we really want to move to a new state for a $13-an-hour plant job? And where’s their self-respect to be willing to work for just $13 a hour?

I’ll tell you what really ticks me off: All of those people we worked to elect last fall. The Democrats control all of Congress and all of the state Legislature. We have a Democratic president and a Democratic governor. And what have they done for us? Where is card check? (That would really stick it to Oklahoma to go down there and unionize their plant.) Why haven’t they passed a stimulus package for manufacturers? They have for the autoworkers and to buy houses. The economy isn’t affecting manufacturers too? And why haven’t they stopped cheap imports made in foreign sweatshops?

Doyle says he’s “disappointed in the vote.” Why isn’t he standing with the people who helped him get elected twice? If the “economic development tools created in my recent budget” are so great, why isn’t Mercury taking advantage of this “remarkable opportunity to consolidate hundreds of jobs here in Wisconsin”? Why is the State of Oklahoma being allowed to pay all the expenses involved in moving the manufacturing operations to Oklahoma?

Truth be told, that vote we took Sunday doesn’t seem so good now. Management says its offer is its last offer, and Tuesday afternoon’s meeting didn’t change that. What’s that phrase — winning the battle and losing the war? Better to die on your feet than live on your knees? Well, how am I going to feed my family without a job? I can’t imagine the union’s going to go back and ask for a revote. Keep the job you have and look for another job … that’s not going to be an option unless something changes this week.

What am I going to do now?