A Reader's Rebuttal To Ingrassia & Me

I wrote this post last night and set it to publish automatically at about 5AM this morning. At 5:23AM, I received this email from a reader:

I think that you must think that the auto workers don't deserve the retirement that they are entitled to. How about the veterans of the armed services that get a pension after 20 years? How about the municipal workers that get a pension after 30 years?

You must not have a clue of what it is to work in an auto factory for 30 years. After standing on the factory floor during that amount of time your ankles, knees and hip joints are about ready to give out. I know a lot of hard working people who've had knee replacement surgery because of that. Carpal tunnel is another major problem. You've probably never woke up in the middle of the night with your hands aching.

All you "experts" have no idea about the people who worked in the plants. Paul Ingrassia is another "expert" that doesn't have a clue. I wake up every day with the same sore back, ankles, knees and hips.

Maybe you should rethink what you write. There are a lot of people out there that believe anything that they read.

Sincerely
A Veteran of the U.S. Armed Services and also a Retired Auto Worker

Let me address this post to the reader who sent me this email.

First, as a US armed forces veteran, you have my respect and gratitude.

But that has nothing to do with your choice of employment thereafter. It's obvious even you don't consider your employment history sufficiently convincing to discuss it on its own merits, because you had to drag patriotism into the discussion. Do you know what Samuel Johnson had to say about that?

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

So, as a favor to you, I'm going to ignore your inappropriate marrying of being a veteran with being a UAW member and retired auto worker.

Did someone put a gun to your head and force you onto an auto assembly line for 30 years? I didn't think so. You probably chose it for the cushy union benefits and wages. Well, welcome to the real world. You make your choice, and you live with the consequences.

I am supposing you are one of those people who equates "hard working" with a lack of education and the requirement that one works in manual labor.

In fact, as a UAW member, I believe that you probably only had to show up for work, sober and not under the influence of drugs, to keep a lifelong job. If your job got cut, you were paid from the infamous "job bank." Your employer could cut your wages only with extreme difficulty, and the risk of a long strike by your union.

I, on the other hand, and many millions like me, chose to purchase more education and work in less physically-taxing careers. We never have unions. We have to manage our own careers, and live with the constant risk of unemployment on the whim of a manager or the result of a bad year in our sector.

It's a tradeoff. We all make them. Nobody is a saint for choosing one path over another. In your case, you decided to spend your physical health in exchange for what you felt was a sweet economic deal.

As for municipal workers, I don't think they deserve 30-and-out, either. Their time will come, and soon, for renegotiation. We cannot, as citizens, afford the lush promises made to these unions by many municipal and state office-holders of both parties.

Veterans of the armed forces are a completely different story. Nothing, in my view, equates with those who have voluntarily chosen the risk of combat as a career.

Finally, I know Paul Ingrassia personally. He has considerably more than a clue.

To be frank, I don't know of many intelligent, highly-motivated people who didn't choose to become better-educated and leave plant floors for more fulfilling work, even if it meant incurring student loan obligations to do so. My brother did that, as did my father. Both have had professional careers of considerable creativity, but both worked in harsh conditions as blue-collar laborers earlier in their lives.

I think that you have an attitude of entitlement that is without merit. You chose a path, made a bargain, and now believe that everyone should feel sorry for your outcome.

I don't. I doubt Ingrassia does, either. Nor most readers of this blog.

You don't have to be vey intelligent to see the folly in a society which allows people to "retire" and earn more in that retirement than they did during their working years. It's simply an unsustainable model. It can't work for long, in very many parts of society, at the same time.

How on earth does anyone really believe that the value created by an employee of any sort, over just 30 years, will pay for both his/her compensation for that 30 years, and then their retirement pay and benefits for up to another 40 years?

It's crazy!

You sound like a whiner with the attitude of a victim, because you are now unhappy with the career choices you made earlier in life.

Quit whining and take responsibility for the choices you have made in life.