Tony Barrett, an economics professor at St. Scholastica in Duluth, poses five excellent questions about the Iron Range’s prospective economic boom in today’s Duluth News-Tribune. I sense on the streets and back roads of the Iron Range that people are sitting back, perhaps a bit too comfortable in the belief that good times are about to roll. There is work to do and change to come. This won’t be easy. Kudos to Barrett for a concise summary of the issues ahead for the people of the Iron Range.
Five questions about the Iron Range economic boom
May 12, 2008 by 2 Comments
Mr. Barrett makes several good points in his analysis.
I think the one thing that hasn’t been talked about is that the area needs to lose part of its union mentality for projects like these to succeed. It’s not so much the high wages, it’s the rediculous workplace rules and the never-ending benefits. I know that was the problem at what used to be Potlatch in Cloquet. Management didn’t have a problem with the wages, it was the legacy costs and workplace rules. An individual I knew that worked there told me stories of how a supervisor couldn’t ask an employee to move a box from one side of the room to the other, as they had to call somebody from a different department to do that. If it wasn’t in the employee’s job description, they couldn’t be asked to do it. He basically said the union protected all of the bad employees and prevented the good ones from advancing. As for the legacy costs, I saw an analysis of the employee costs at GM (whose employees are represented by UAW) compared with those at Toyota (which are not unionized). The average GM worker was paid $74 per hour when benefits were included while the Toyota worker was paid $45 per hour. The average hourly wages of the companies were virtually the same, but GM had a pension plan and Toyota had a 401-K.
As a native of northern Minnesota (West Duluth) who has moved away, I would love to see the area have a boom. The only problem is that there will be a bust as soon as the price of steel starts to go down again. The only way projects like the ones on the Iron Range will succeed in the long term is if the area realizes that the companies that invest there are there to make money. The employees have to look on the companies as their friend, not their foe.
Hey Todd,
Nice and comfy where ever you’re living now are we?
It’s so likely that you’re not union and never have been. As a born and raised Iron Ranger who’s lived in Alaska, Oregon, Texas and now in Minneapolis, I was elated to hear of the prospect of the good old Iron Range coming back into it’s glory.
So many people around this country have no concept of the work ethic that we Rangers grew up with. It’s easy to sit back and armchair quarterback, but when you live there it’s quite a different story.
It took a lot of organized effort for the trades to STAY together during economic hardships, to hold onto their fought-for wages.
I remember working for a friend’s boss one time who exclaimed, “no man is worth that much” when I told him my union wage (at the time) was $23 an hour. Meanwhile he owned his own sporting goods company and made well into 6 figures a year himself.
It seems nobody wants the blue collar guys to get ahead, like there should be some kind of financial line in the sand for “us and them”.
Fighting to keep your job and situation is what every serious worker does everyday. Having someone outside of the game making rules against you just shouldn’t be tolerated.
A local job should go to a local person first which is the most likely outcome of hiring union. Going nonunion in this situation is like tearing the doors off your own house and not having a say about who comes in.
West Duluth is not the Iron Range, go live there a while and get a real feeling for what it’s like to (1.)find and (2.)hold onto a job.
And thank you for your support.