One man’s story about why he’s working in Minnesota instead of Wisconsin

This sums up why “It’s Not Working” in Scott Walker’s Wisconsin.

I am working in MN for a number of reasons. I have family support, I have to work where I can find it and MN has better paying opportunities than WI.

I have been in manufacturing since I got out of the army so I have experienced the war on working people first hand. I used to think that the reason I wasn’t getting ahead was because I wasn’t making good choices or working hard enough. I know better now!
I lost my union job making paper back in 2002. The company sold out to make the owners a ton of money. The workers, not so much.

I used a government program (dislocated worker program) to go back to school to be retrained and got my technical degree so I have played by the rules and done everything I was supposed to do to be successful. Well the joke was on me. The playing field isn’t level, in fact the other team cheats and the refs help them make up the rules as the game goes along. The people at the top are deathly afraid of honest competition and they rig the game at every chance they get.

We have 2 choices, organize and take back our lives and lively hoods at the ballot box or we can organize and get our lives back by force.

I still believe in the ballot box so when I was contacted by the Mary Burke campaign for WI governor I was eager to help. The gentleman I first talked to got an earful. I talked about how I had played by the rules and how blessed I had been to have gotten this far raising a family and putting my wife and my kids through school. I also gave him hell about all the weak and calculating candidates we have tried to get elected and how it was no wonder we don’t vote in greater numbers. If you don’t excite the base how can you persuade fence sitters.

I thought I had scared him off with my passionate ranting but I was contacted again and arrangements were made to have a film crew come to MN and tell my story on camera.

I am a machine builder by trade and I wire control panels to make the machines run as designed, unfortunately this occupation is subject to market forces and it is very easy to improve the bottom line by laying off workers especially temp hires. I have worked for a number of machine companies and if they don’t have a backlog of orders I get laid off.
This puts me in the unemployment line more often than I’d like and I have to play by their arcane rules’ because everybody knows I just want to sit on my butt and collect 1/3 of what I make working. I get my jobs thru recruiters and temp agencies and I never really know what combination of things will get me hired. I was contacted about my current gig by a recruiter that saw my resume online and because I have family support in MN I could take the job.

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2 thoughts on “One man’s story about why he’s working in Minnesota instead of Wisconsin

  1. This is more about the way our economic system doesn’t work than it is about Scott Walker. “The playing field isn’t level, in fact the other team cheats and the refs help them make up the rules as the game goes along. The people at the top are deathly afraid of honest competition and they rig the game at every chance they get.” Has the Democratic Party proposed a plan to get us away from this?

    1. I’m no fan of the Dem Party but I’m also growing weary of online critics who present no viable alternative. Occupy Seattle morphed into a successful political campaign that elected a socialist to the city council, Kshama Sawant. Occupy Riverwest/Madison has morphed into the Overpass Light Brigade and the Tiny Homes project.

      Why is the Wisconsin left satisfied with just either speaking or singing truth to power, but can never get our act together enough to BE the power?

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