Blue Collar Workers

Given an unusual opportunity to talk to President-elect Bill Clinton by telephone, unemployed defense-industry worker Ken Hunt of Santa Ana got to the point. He asked Clinton for a job. A single father of six and a lifelong Republican, Hunt used his persistence--with the help of his speed-dialing telephone--to get through to Clinton and offer firsthand knowledge of unemployment during the first day of the President-elect's economic conference.

"There are estimates that 20% to 25% of the blue-collar work force in the auto and steel industries is illiterate," says Anthony St. John, vice president of human resources for Chrysler. St. John, who has worked 23 years in industrial relations, made that statement in a speech last week in Michigan--while also reporting that Chrysler and the United Auto Workers had set up programs to teach employees to read. The unsettling thing is that the news comes as no surprise.

On Labor Day, 1995, how we view the American economy depends on where we sit. From one vantage point, the economy looks wildly successful. The World Economic Forum, which monitors the advanced industrial nations, now ranks the U.S. economy the most competitive in the world. In the 30 months of the Clinton presidency, we have seen the creation of more than 7 million new jobs. But viewed from other seats, the American economy looks more wild than successful.

Leisure wear is looking awfully work-like these days. Consider Carhartt Inc., which has been outfitting plumbers, delivery people and farmers in shirts, jackets and bib overalls for 104 years. The family-owned company unexpectedly found itself on fashion's cutting edge two years ago when a small circle of rap singers took to wearing Carhartt jackets and overalls on stage.

Olga Robelo has worked at Lanz, a women's clothing manufacturer and retailer, for 25 years. She has graded patterns--draft ing a range of pattern sizes from one basic pattern piece--with ruler and pencil and later with a manual grading machine. But now, Olga Robelo is moving into the computer age along with Lanz and many other companies in the garment industry.

Jack Kreuger's task is to shatter dreams: to convince auto workers that their high-wage, lifetime jobs may be gone forever. "There's so much denial--people thought General Motors would call them back and it's just not happening," said Kreuger, an adviser and counselor on job training and relocation for the United Auto Workers.

Since the late 1970s, 75,000 manufacturing jobs have disappeared from Los Angeles County. Steel plants, rubber plants, auto plants, meat-packing plants--industries that paid wages high enough for blue-collar workers to enjoy middle-class lives--shut down. The jobs were either eliminated or transferred to cheaper labor markets overseas, in Mexico or in the South. The pattern has become so familiar that one of the latest plant closures--Oscar Mayer Foods Corp.'

During the 25 years that Ezequiel Varela worked as an engineer, he and his family spent freely on expensive clothes, entertainment and fine dining. But now, the 49-year-old father of five says the family can no longer afford such extravagances. Varela, who lives in Covina, worked as a software engineer for General Dynamics in Pomona for eight years, until he was laid off Aug. 23. He said this is the first time he has been jobless since leaving college in 1961.

Blue-collar workers aren't giving up cigarettes as readily as white-collar workers, and on-the-job smoking-cessation programs are less successful for them as well. Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute of Boston believe they've found a solution: combining cessation programs with work safety programs.