One week into my new job at the home, farm and auto supply store I believe I can make it.
I move a lot of 40 pound bags of pet food, 50 pound bags of bulk grains and 70 pound sand tubes, providing upper body exercise without straining my back or shoulders. I can do the work.
While the rest of the ten grand needed to finance this year’s adventure remains elusive, I am confident of finding it. Thing is, the rest of life can’t wait until I do.
Because of three things, January will be about politics: the beginning of the Iowa Legislature’s second session of the 86th General Assembly, the impending Feb. 1 Iowa political caucuses, and President Obama’s last State of the Union Address next Tuesday. Any available time will be spent on political activity.
That said, priority one remains getting back to consistent, daily work on creative projects, beginning with a return to writing 1,000 words per day. The way days progress, mornings offer the best time to get that done. Evenings have been a mixed bag of meetings, shopping, cooking and existential errands. As the sun sets later, there will be more opportunity for activities that require physical activity, including work at a second job when I find it.
Despite challenges, I am hopeful. Such hope being enough to stave off the grim reaper for yet another year.
The good news about finishing three full weeks at the home, farm and auto supply store is the company offers health insurance that meets the Internal Revenue Service “minimum value standard” for less money than coverage available through the government’s health insurance marketplace or elsewhere.
The bad news is all of the pay from this full-time job will fund health care insurance, co-pays and deductibles for our family if we seek any care. If we don’t need health care once the coverage goes into effect Feb. 1 that will leave us roughly $150 take home pay per week. We’ll need more than that to pay the rest of our expenses.
Ada Blenkhorn and J. Howard Entwistle wrote the song “Keep on the Sunny Side” in 1899:
There’s a dark and a troubled side of life;
There’s a bright and a sunny side, too;
Tho’ we meet with the darkness and strife,
The sunny side we also may view.
Most people know the version Mother Maybelle Carter sang on the 1972 record album Will the Circle Be Unbroken produced by William E. McEuan. I favor the original A.P. Carter version which hearkens back to our family roots in Southwestern Virginia. Dig deep enough and you’ll find we’re shirt tail relatives on the Addington side, which is Mother Maybelle’s maiden name.
Not only may we view the sunny side, keeping there will be the only thing that gives us hope. This first job sets a foundation upon which to build the rest of my worklife.
What else?
In the works are spring at the Community Supported Agriculture project, summer editing at Blog for Iowa, and fall weekends at the apple orchard. These were all discussed during my interview with the home, farm and auto supply company, so getting time off shouldn’t be a problem.
The most excitement I felt in a while was finding the Seed Savers Exchange 2016 seed catalog in the mailbox yesterday.
Someone gave me a packet of their scarlet kale seeds last year and it was a great addition to the garden. Too bad all of my customers are used to getting kale for free, or it could be a source of some income.
It is conceivable I could generate a thousand or so dollars from the garden this year by expanding the planting area and selling excess. Circumstances may have me doing that.
It is a reasonably warm fall day near the lake — a time for hope and getting lost in seed catalogs.
On Thursday I made the last garden harvest and brought the water hose inside the garage. Snow began to fall yesterday around 5:30 p.m.
I am writing and waiting for daylight to shovel the driveway.
More is changing than the weather. I started a new, full-time job at the home, farm and auto supply store Nov. 12. All other paying work ended. The coming weeks will be a time of figuring out how to make the rest of our revenue budget while supporting my writing. I’m beginning again, which is much different from starting over.
A political organizer from the Bernie Sanders for president campaign found me yesterday and emailed a canvass. Email is impersonal, and I don’t recognize the canvasser as being from our precinct. I responded with my lack of support for Sanders. She wanted to know more. Instead I emailed I was on a hiatus from politics until after Jan. 1, 2016. That’s as true as is any effort to divorce oneself from politics.
I’ve been more concerned about my writing. Specifically, whether I should continue to publish for free. This blog, and others, help me practice the craft. The same can be said for my newspaper writing, except the difference was having an editor. An editor helps improve the quality of work. At what point does this editor-less, non-paying work become less relevant? I don’t know.
The project on local food slowed with my new job. I’ve written a lot about agriculture, gardening and food, so there’s material for a memoir. Some figuring out of life, work and play is required before taking it up again.
Everything is in between. Crossing the line to a new construct is possible with the new year, spring latest.
There is snow to shovel and a shift at the supply store. Those things take precedence in this moment.
Author at Kraft Foods Oscar Mayer plant on Second Street in Davenport, Iowa, Nov. 25, 2011 Photo Credit Dan J. Czolgosz
DAVENPORT — The Kraft Foods Oscar Mayer plant on Second Street will be razed as its new owner, Kraft Heinz, plans to move operations and layoff much of the workforce at the long-time meat packing plant.
Wednesday’s announcement, that Kraft Heinz will close seven plants in the U.S. and Canada over the next two years as part of a downsizing that will eliminate 2,600 jobs, or roughly 14 percent of its North American factory workforce, was widely anticipated by workers.
The company plans a new Davenport facility, contingent upon government financial support, however, some view it as a devil’s bargain because the net impact will be to lose about 800 jobs.
United Food and Commercial Workers Local 431 had not been consulted about the changes.
“They threw the union under the bus,” plant employee Curtis Grant of Eldridge said in an interview with the Quad City Times.
Concessionary bargaining is nothing new to Local 431 whose members ratified a four-year contract with Kraft Foods Oscar Mayer on Nov. 13, 2014. The sticking point in those negotiations was insurance and pensions.
“Now with Heinz, the company is basically telling Davenport give us subsidies to shutter the Second Street plant and build a new facility on the north side or we will close completely and take all the work to Missouri,” said a local worker who requested anonymity via email. “Both the city and the union are painted into a corner. And now with them talking about building a new $200 million plant, the building trades are excited to get those jobs. It’s a devil’s bargain.”
In the takeover of Kraft Foods by Heinz, business partners Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway and global investment firm 3G Capital hope to reduce expenses by $1.5 billion by exploiting synergies among operations and consolidating back office functions including supply chain management, accounting and administration.
On Friday, Berkshire Hathaway reported third-quarter profits more than doubled to $9.4 billion as the completion of the Kraft-Heinz merger boosted the paper value of its stake in the food giant. The deal was good for the third richest man in the world.
Thursday, the Iowa Department of Economic Development announced a $4.75 million incentive plan for the Davenport plant closing, including $3 million once the facility is razed.
“We are glad that Davenport, was able to successfully compete for a new, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility that will certainly position it for future growth,” said Debi Durham, director of the IEDA in a press release. “As major brands merge in this sector, consolidation and modernization will be the outcome.”
Durham said to the Quad City Times she is aware of the potential negative perception of providing state-funded financial assistance to a company that is downsizing its workforce both in Iowa and nationally.
“The optics are not lost on us, and believe me, the sensitivity is not lost on us. We care about people,” she said. “So we do the plays that we believe give us the greatest opportunity for the future, and I think that was what you saw here today.”
Durham said offering financial assistance to a company that is downsizing is not unique and could become more common as more large companies merge.
“We’re going to see more of this,” Durham said. “You’re seeing large mergers going on at a very high level between equals. And any time that happens and we have facilities, that’s something to watch for us.”
It appears Durham’s department has become like a turkey vulture picking over the carrion of what used to be a robust manufacturing economy and the middle class it supported.
If we consider what the Davenport plant makes – bologna, Lunchables, and other branded, highly processed meat products – this day had to come. In part, consolidation of the food industry is a reaction to the fact that tastes have changed and sales of some traditional products have declined. The processed meats industry is experiencing declining consumption of meat in general, and an interest in healthier options, according to data aggregator Statista, Inc.
The World Health Organization supports moderation of consumption of preserved meats to reduce the risk of colorectal cancer and has been doing so since 2002. On Oct. 29, WHO released a new report regarding the connection between red meat and cancer. Juxtaposition of this story with news about Kraft Foods Oscar Mayer, and Buffett’s third quarter financial results tells a broader story. Things have changed since Oscar F. Mayer immigrated from Germany and began selling sausages from his butcher shop in Chicago in 1883.
This story hits personally because not only did my maternal grandmother, my father and I work at the plant, the rise of Oscar Mayer as a global brand framed my early participation in our consumer society. I’m not alone in that.
When the Mayer family sold the company to General Foods in 1981, the Reagan revolution that resulted in decimation of the middle class had already begun. While it would have been hard to predict today’s outcome in 1981, what’s happening is not surprising in that context.
The two year transition to plant closure will hopefully enable employees to figure out what to do with the rest of their lives. Perhaps that is the best that can be expected.
Here is the entire statement provided to employees at one of the affected plants:
“Following an extensive review of the Kraft Heinz North American supply chain footprint, capabilities and capacity utilization, we are announcing the closure of seven manufacturing facilities in North America: Fullerton, California; San Leandro, California; Federalsburg, Maryland; St. Marys, Ontario, Canada; Campbell, New York; Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania; and Madison, Wisconsin. In a staged process over the next 12-24 months, production in these locations will shift to other existing factories in North America.
We are also planning to move production from our existing Davenport, Iowa, facility to a new, state-of-the-art location within the Davenport area; and move part of our cheese production from our Champaign, Illinois, facility to other factories within our network, which will create will make Champaign a center-of-excellence in dry and sauce production. Both moves will take up to two years to complete.
Our decision to consolidate manufacturing across the Kraft Heinz North American network is a critical step in our plan to eliminate excess capacity and reduce operational redundancies for the new combined Company. This will make Kraft Heinz more globally competitive and accelerate the Company’s future growth.
We have reached this difficult but necessary decision after thoroughly exploring extensive alternatives and options. This action will reduce the size of our North American factory-based employee population by a net number of approximately 2,600 positions.
At the same time, we will invest hundreds of millions of dollars in improving capacity utilization and modernizing many of our facilities with the installation of state-of-the-art production lines.
We will treat our people with the utmost respect and dignity. At the appropriate time, affected employees will receive severance benefits, outplacement services and other support to help them pursue new job opportunities. Kraft Heinz fully appreciates and regrets the impact our decision will have on employees, their families and the communities in which these facilities are located,” Michael Mullen, SVP of Corporate & Government Affairs.
“Additionally, Kraft Heinz is announcing that in 2016 we will move Oscar Mayer and our US Meats Business Unit from Madison, Wisconsin to our co-headquarters in Chicago. The move will bring 250 jobs to the Chicago area.
Members of the Oscar Mayer and US Meats Business Unit will have the opportunity to move with the business to Chicago. The move centralizes all our U.S. Business Units to our co-headquarters of Chicago and Pittsburgh, which will drive increased collaboration and efficiency.”
It became clear at CRST Logistics I couldn’t combine writing with a career the way William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, and every college teacher who took ink to paper did.
I transitioned to being a purveyor of writing and speaking. It has been tough to consistently secure enough income to support the new métier.
Yesterday I finished the season at the orchard. Freelancing for the newspaper slowed down. It is time once again to set writing aside and work on that necessary task – generating cash to pay expenses.
What do I want to do? Whatever I can to cover ongoing expenses, pay down debt, and enable my writing.
While not a neophyte in the art of the job search, I have a lot to learn. The work I’ve done in retail and as a correspondent may not be around the way it has been.
A recent article at Business Insider lists jobs that are at risk of being automated. The list includes not only retail salespersons and newspaper correspondents, but loan officers, receptionists, taxi drivers, security guards, fast food cooks, bartenders, financial advisers, and musicians. These are all position I might have considered. Suffice it this job search must identify more sustainable work than what these professions offer.
“A significant factor in the decline of the quality of jobs in the United States has been employers’ increasing reliance on ‘non-regular’ employees,” Steven Hill wrote at Salon, “(It is) a growing army of freelancers, temps, contractors, part-timers, day laborers, micro-entrepreneurs, gig-preneurs, solo-preneurs, contingent labor, perma-lancers and perma-temps.”
I embrace such a lifestyle, yet creating a sustainable portfolio of such work has been challenging. Careful attention to budget and managing expenses is essential and is the easier part of the process. What is hard is recognizing the life-cycle of a specific engagement and properly planning for a continuous revenue stream.
“Where I landed after a career in transportation was with a portfolio of activities, some paid and some not,” I wrote in a presentation for the Solon Public Library, “I value all of the work I do and have to make choices on how I spend my time. My life is a systematic and thoughtful process of continuous evaluation and improvement.”
I need to get better at it.
The transition of newspapers, like what is happening at Gannett, is ongoing and incomplete. More and more, the local paper has articles written by reporters further up the organizational structure, blocking out space for freelancers. I enjoyed a good run writing for the Iowa City Press Citizen, but there hasn’t been a story offered in a month. The lesson learned is it is okay to take work to build experience, but as a freelancer the thread to the newspaper can be dependent upon a particular editor. Mine left a while back.
In a world where companies increasingly do away with full time employees using apps and algorithms to manage a pool of part-time workers, being a fulfillment person in such a system has its vagaries and downside. To make such jobs work requires a personal infrastructure to take care of basic needs separately from companies who offer employment. For many years this was exactly what companies wanted – a flexible, variable labor expense that could be ramped up during peak demand and ramped down during the slow times in a business cycle. I developed a support structure where part-time or temporary jobs can be plugged in, but underestimated the continuous need for business development.
During a recent interview for a retail sales position, I was asked my salary requirements. I need between $20,000 and $24,000 per year to pay expenses and may have priced myself out of the job. The reality is we must make our own opportunities or subjugate our lives to what has become a new form of indentured servitude. Instead of booking passage to prosperity in a new world, today such workers struggle to get by in a society that seems interested only in making a buck from you’re here today, gone tomorrow labor.
I worked for great people during much of my working life. Going forward, knowing my potential manager before taking a job will be an important consideration. This learning came from constant experimentation and reflection on the jobs I’ve held since re-purposing in 2009. It’s no secret a significant reason people leave jobs is they don’t get along with their manager.
Yesterday I multi-tasked at the orchard, something we do when the end of season draws near. In addition to helping customers find apples to pick, I prepared samples of eight varieties of apples. Customers, other employees and I had many engaged conversations about apples, their parentage and uses – it’s great work if you can get it. It was the last day of the season and my manager invited me back next year.
On June 23, 2009 I made my last business trip in a career with many of them.
Arriving in Chicago on the corporate aircraft, we drove to the Loop to explain the account transition precipitated by my retirement to our largest customer. The meeting took place at their corporate office in the Wrigley Building. We could see the recently completed Trump Tower Chicago through the windows. It had become time to change the skyline of my life.
I had taken to dozing off during staff meetings and lost interest in getting along with the other members of the management team. It was time to make my exit. I hoped to do so with some measure of grace and didn’t know what would be next.
Now, I do.
After years of experimentation, volunteering, and a portfolio of part-time and temporary jobs, I have begun to write in earnest, and intend to make something more than 500-1,000 word posts for publication in newspapers, on blogs, and in other outlets.
The first subject will be a memoir about the evolution of my understanding of local food over the last six years. The goal is a 25,000-word essay that can be combined with other short pieces into a self-published book. Book sales will become a way for people to contribute financially to my work at events.
Equipped with a reasonably sound memory, a sheaf of recent writing on food, labor, farming, gardening, cooking and agriculture, I’m ready.
At a thousand words a day, the essay should be complete by year’s end. Hopefully people will find it unique and worth reading. If I’m lucky, it will be a contribution toward expanding the local food movement.
The consensus in social media was Walmart’s substantial stock decline on Wednesday – in advance of lower earnings projections – couldn’t have happened to a better group of jerks.
When people talk about re-distributing wealth, in part, they mean taking it from the Waltons, even though it was not just members of the one percent that got hit as Walmart stock is part of many portfolios owned by small investors and retirement funds.
The $14.7 billion valuation loss came after the CEO Doug McMillon briefed a group of financial analysts that earnings would decline sharply between now and 2018 because of a substantial investment in human resources which includes employee training, raising the average wage to $10 per hour, and adding more middle managers to improve the customer experience. The company also plans a significant investment in technology to be more competitive in e-commerce.
That Walmart would point to their February decision to raise the wage of its associates as a contributing cause of the lower earnings projection was called out by union members.
“Walmart should be ashamed for trying to blame its failures on the so-called wage increases. The truth is that hard-working Walmart employees all across the country began seeing their hours cut soon after the new wages were announced,” said Jess Levin, a spokesperson for the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.
It’s a fools game for unions to use Walmart as a proxy argument for the need for union representation, something that should stand on its own merits. The discussion about wages and needs of low income workers is not about wages. It is more about valuing work in our society. Whatever one thinks of the pay and benefits at Walmart, they provide jobs – more than 2.2 million of them globally.
A complicating factor is 260 million people per week shop at Walmart globally. The average U.S. Walmart shopper is a white, 50-year-old female with an average household income of $53,125. Walmart is a mainstay of an economic system where people rely on low prices as wages have been stagnant.
At the same time Walmart’s stock value declined, some view it as a buying opportunity. On whatever rocky shoals the company finds itself, the fact remains that as a mature business four percent of the global population shops there every week. It isn’t going anywhere. The Waltons’ stake seems likely to rise in value again, and there is no serious activity underway to take anything from the Waltons.
Walmart is a target because it is the largest private employer in the U.S. Fairly or not, the company is used as a proxy for what’s wrong in our economic system. Focusing attention on Walmart is a diversion from what should be our target. It has less to do with Wall Street and everything to do with valuing work people do everyday with low or non-existent pay.
As long as we complain about Walmart and fail to take action to respect workers, the Waltons will be fine, and the rest of us no better than we were before they rose to the one percent.
Word from a friend was to leave discussion of the Solon city council’s minimum wage vote at home when I visit later in the week. It’s nice to know stuff like that in advance.
More than a few locals are upset about the decision to lower the city’s minimum wage to the state figure after the county raised it. Some, including people who live here, have called for a boycott of Solon businesses.
My response is a boycott won’t matter much in our household.
Our main dining out is at Nomi’s Asian Restaurant where we have been going since she and her husband opened. Asian takeout will continue to be on our menu when we don’t want to cook at home. It is too far to drive anywhere else to get it. We only visit bars and eateries in town when there is a specific meet up with people we know, and not many times in a year.
I’ll continue to buy convenience foods at the grocery store. The staples are secured at a variety of other stores for lower prices, better selection, and to meet specific needs. We go to the grocery store more often than we dine out, but not by much.
When I worked in Coralville I bought gasoline at Costco because of the convenience and a slight discount. This business will transfer to Solon, but the impact on the local economy will be almost nil. As everyone knows, margins are slim on retail gasoline sales. At our two Casey’s General Stores the revenue goes directly into whatever bank the Ankeny based corporation uses. Casey’s has the city’s lowest price for a gallon of milk, so when we run out of Costco milk at $2.60 per gallon, I’ll buy at Casey’s for a dollar more.
I visit the hardware store for certain needs. I buy canning supplies there even though they are more expensive. It is the kind of hardware store where a person can take in a bolt or screw and buy more like it — exactly how many are needed. They carry things used in a typical garage: lawn mower spark plugs, clips, fasteners, hand tools, lubricants and sundry items. If a need develops, they will be the first stop because of their inventory. The two women who run the place may or may not be making a wage. They didn’t come to the city council meeting. I suspect they have an opinion, but don’t want to share it publicly. Likewise for every other business owner that didn’t speak at the meeting.
All told, the amount of dollars we spend in the community never amounted to a hill of beans, or any other legume. If I participated in a boycott of local business it would hurt me more than them, increasing the isolation that has become home to us. In any case a boycott is not being organized like others that have been successful. The boycott talk is more fantasy than reality.
In 1965 our family boycotted grapes to support the Delano Grape strike. I remember Father explaining who Cesar Chavez was, that grapes were grown mostly in the California Central Valley, and the importance of a fair wage. We weren’t buying them at the Geifman’s Food Store near our house and didn’t for the duration of the boycott. I loved grapes, and still do, but accepted that there was a shared cause that required sacrifice.
There is none of that in the relatively wealthy Solon environs over this issue. If there were, a boycott would be more viable. For now, life goes on much as it did before the city council voted to lower minimum wage.
Leaves of soybeans turn, painting a landscape of green, amber and gold as the plants die, pods wither and beans dry in the field. Tall corn is also losing its green, its growing season done. Soon harvest will be here.
Freedom comes with being an unpaid blogger. Posting what I will with only the sense of propriety and culture gained over six decades restraining me, on days like today, I write about myself.
Outbuilding in Johnson County
Yesterday started with interviewing a farmer for a freelance article. Before going to the county seat, I interviewed another. When people talk about a “career” they often don’t consider how complicated a farmer’s life is. There is income from farm operations, but it often doesn’t cover the bills, so growing vegetables, selling eggs and becoming a sales representative for a national business are added into the mix.
People don’t farm alone. There is always a network of family and friends to lend a hand with the physically demanding work. It has been that way since we took the land from those who lived here before in the 19th Century.
Caucus Card
After the interview I drove into the county seat at Linn and Market Streets to meet up with organizers for the Hillary Clinton campaign. I signed a caucus card and offered to canvass some area people I know, bring food to their Iowa City office when I come to town, and help organize an event or two.
After that, I walked to Old Brick where Free Press Action Fund had organized a meeting about advocating for Internet access, affordability and freedom. More than a dozen people attended and at the end we took this group photo.
Free Press Action Fund Training at Old Brick
It was a long day, capped by getting caught in a rainstorm. Luckily it relented before getting thoroughly drenched.
I attended the Solon City Council meeting regarding the minimum wage ordinance passed on Sept. 16.
This is a discussion worth having in the extended Solon community as we celebrate our dodransbicentennial.
A couple of things are worth mentioning.
It served no purpose for outside parties to participate in the discussion. Those from Davenport and Muscatine may as well have saved the gasoline. In the end the City of Solon must decide for itself where it stands regarding support of business at its intersection with social justice. If city residents don’t like what council is doing regarding minimum wage or anything else, then vote them out. Better yet, get involved and run for office.
None of the media coverage or statements at the meeting indicated the input of people who actually work for minimum wage in Solon was considered. The discussion was the less for that. The median household income of Solon is well above that of Iowa City and the rest of Iowa, so hourly wage is not a concern here as much as it is in larger urban areas. Nonetheless, the input of minimum wage workers would have added to the discussion.
During the recess following the minimum wage discussion someone said, “It’s just like the Scott Walker recall.” No, it’s not. I had expected the meeting to be more confrontational, but it wasn’t. Speakers and council achieved a level of decorum that stands as a model for other municipalities to emulate.
That Solon is having a discussion about minimum wage is an important step toward long-term economic vitality. We can thank the Johnson County supervisors for kicking things off. Their action served to prompt a discussion in which the city council members can be held accountable for their decision.
The most excitement I felt in a while was finding the Seed Savers Exchange 2016 seed catalog in the mailbox yesterday.
Journey Home 
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