Gisholt: Death of a Factory; No. 9; Unemployment, Part 2, Self Help: Does It Work?

<v Host>Gisholt Death of a Factory. A series of programs about termination and unemployment. <v Host>The 9th program in the series is called Unemployment to Self-Help. <v Host>Does it work? <v Unemployed Speaker 1>You would uh have a depressed uh feeling once in a while that, <v Unemployed Speaker 1>uh. Where do I go from here? <v Unemployed Speaker 1>Where do I look? Um should I start traveling and looking for a job in another <v Unemployed Speaker 1>city? I had times um I had my bad days, but, um, <v Unemployed Speaker 1>with the help of friends and my wife in others and the Gisholt a <v Unemployed Speaker 1>self-help organization, I kept going. I. <v Unemployed Speaker 1>I just made up my mind that I was not going to quit. <v Unemployed Speaker 1>I wasn't not going to lose my self-respect or pride. <v Unemployed Speaker 1>And I think this was the motto that kept me going. <v Unemployed Speaker 1>[noise] <v Unemployed Speaker 2>I worked there just a few months short of 15 years, <v Unemployed Speaker 2>and then not quite make the separation pay, which <v Unemployed Speaker 2>created a problem financially.

<v Unemployed Speaker 2>But uh it all works out. Because I belong to the City View organization. <v Unemployed Speaker 3>The situation says, she says, with um unemployment <v Unemployed Speaker 3>the way it is not just here in medicine, but throughout the United States. <v Unemployed Speaker 3>You just have to have a little courage or guts. <v Unemployed Speaker 3>And we came up with the bucks and we're going to go this way. <v Unemployed Speaker 3>We don't know anything else to do. [noise] <v Host>On January 15th, 1971, the Gettings and Lewis Corporation announced the <v Host>closing of its subsidiary, the Gisholt Machine Company. <v Host>Approximately 1200 terminated workers were released onto the labor market to look for <v Host>new jobs. To ease the transition, most workers had to make from Gisholt <v Host>to other companies. Professor Carl Smith of the University of Wisconsin and some

<v Host>graduate students in social cybernetics and industrial psychology set <v Host>up a group called the Gisholt Self-Help Organization. <v Host>The idea for a self-help union was based on Dr. Smith's belief that the loss of jobs <v Host>for some workers could mean a loss of pride, identity and a loss of security. <v Host>Dr. Smith maintained that a worker without a job could feel he was no longer a man or no <v Host>longer the family's provider, and that the change in his status and perhaps his <v Host>self-importance could result in depression and degradation. <v Host>Agencies might not be able to give him the necessary support, but instead might leave him <v Host>alone to solve his own problems. <v Host>For many men, this form of self-help without direction might not be enough to get them <v Host>jobs. Dr. Smith believed in self-help with a difference in the <v Host>early summer of 1971. Some of Dr. Smith's students put up a registration <v Host>table at the state employment office. <v Host>Former Gisholt workers applying there for jobs and unemployment compensation were <v Host>encouraged by the students to register with the organization and to come to a general

<v Host>meeting. The basic purpose was to form a group of X Gisholt employees <v Host>and to help them help themselves. <v Host>A base would be established for weekly meetings where the men could maintain their <v Host>Gisholt ties and hopefully the men would work together, offer each other moral <v Host>support and find themselves jobs. <v Host>Jim Murgon are one of the organization's staff. <v Jim Murgon>Well, Dr. Smith did a long, long study of the uh caller strike years ago. <v Jim Murgon>When that closed. <v Jim Murgon>Well, it was closed down by strike rather than a permanent plant closing, <v Jim Murgon>but it was out for years and years. <v Jim Murgon>I think it was 9 or 10 years. It was ridiculously long. <v Jim Murgon>But the the upshot of it was uh it did a tremendous amount <v Jim Murgon>of psychological damage to the men who were involved. <v Jim Murgon>Well, he felt that the Gisholt closing would probably do the same thing here in Madison, <v Jim Murgon>that this would be a terrific letdown, a terrific <v Jim Murgon>psychological depression to all of these people.

<v Jim Murgon>And he felt that if we could keep them together rather than let them separate <v Jim Murgon>to their own homes and certain that perhaps <v Jim Murgon>the spirit that they had had when they had worked together, the ties that they had <v Jim Murgon>had working with other men and so forth. <v Jim Murgon>If we could keep these together, that this would help to bridge <v Jim Murgon>this gap and help to bring them around toward uh some sort <v Jim Murgon>of positive way of seeking new jobs. <v Jim Murgon>And what we decided to do was uh form small groups <v Jim Murgon>and actually go out and uh like an interview team rather <v Jim Murgon>than have the employer interview one person at a time. <v Jim Murgon>We decided that it would be easier to cover the entire community by having <v Jim Murgon>groups go out and talk to the employers and in this way find <v Jim Murgon>out what the employers were looking for at the present time and actually interview <v Jim Murgon>the employer rather than have the employer interviewing the man who was looking. <v Jim Murgon>So what we wanted to do was gather information about all of the companies in the area,

<v Jim Murgon>what they were seeking, uh the times of the year when they <v Jim Murgon>were going to be needing help the most. <v Jim Murgon>What types of jobs would be available and what types of talent they were they were <v Jim Murgon>looking for. <v Host>The staff of the self-help organization believed that employment offices offered only <v Host>limited information and services to the men. <v Host>Traditional agencies could provide relatively little individual counseling and could not <v Host>seek out jobs from prospective employers. <v Host>They were basically job collection agencies. <v Host>The self-help approach, however, might be able to lend ideas and encouragement to other <v Host>employment services could not. <v Host>The organization could suggest seemingly elementary things like how to dress, <v Host>how to fill out application forms, what to say in an interview, and where to look for new <v Host>jobs. These could be important tips for men who had not looked for work in 20 years. <v Host>The organization could act as a bulletin board and receiving agency for new employment <v Host>announcements and opportunities, but it could also serve as a springboard from <v Host>which the men could research jobs.

<v Host>It could provide facilities like office machines, telephones and meeting rooms to help <v Host>the men launch a publicity campaign. <v Host>Initially, 25 men joined the group. <v Host>Eventually, the number increased to 40. <v Host>The men who signed up represented a broad spectrum of job, skill and employment history. <v Host>Janitors, lathe operators, draftsman salesmen and engineers became <v Host>members of the group. But the numbers were fewer than anticipated, and both the staff <v Host>and the members themselves wished that other workers would have come out to join them. <v Host>The workers who came to the meetings may have been more receptive to doing something or <v Host>changing something. One man had read about plant closings and the potential effects <v Host>of termination on workers. He said he decided to join the self-help group because <v Host>it was one step in the right direction. <v Host>One way to avoid the possibility of dejection and despair. <v Host>The men who didn't join may have suspected the organization because it was connected with <v Host>the university. Some may have been afraid of being exploited or being made <v Host>guinea pigs in some kind of university experiment.

<v Host>One man referred to the self-help union as an after school project run by a bunch <v Host>of kids. He felt it was the union's function to form some kind of a group. <v Host>And the meeting should have been held at union headquarters. <v Host>Some men decided they could find jobs on their own and many did. <v Host>Others may have become too withdrawn. <v Host>They had already given up hope, and some men decided that coming to the meetings wasn't <v Host>worth the effort unless the organization guaranteed them a job. <v Host>One self-help member put it this way. <v Host>They were used to being told what to do at Gisholt and all of a sudden they weren't doing <v Host>the things they were used to. Some of them couldn't make the switch. <v Host>The main function of the self-help organization was to help the men find work. <v Host>But there was also a social function that developed Jim Murgon. <v Jim Murgon>What we wanted to accomplish was to provide uh more <v Jim Murgon>resources for the people to help themselves. <v Jim Murgon>Basically, this was the whole theory behind it. <v Jim Murgon>If they didn't want to help themselves, uh there was nothing really we could do to push <v Jim Murgon>them. The social aspect was something that we didn't really push.

<v Jim Murgon>Uh it was something that was we thought kind of a byproduct or was something we were we <v Jim Murgon>were aiming at accomplishing, but we wanted to do it without telling them that you're <v Jim Murgon>doing this. It was something that we felt that would be good for them. <v Jim Murgon>But at the same time, it was not the reason that we were telling them that we were <v Jim Murgon>getting the group together. The uh important function was to be job <v Jim Murgon>seeking. The social interaction was something that we planned uh <v Jim Murgon>in advance. We figured that this would this would help them, but it was not something we <v Jim Murgon>were stressing. <v Different Speaker>I have a Gisholt wife,. <v Different Speaker>I get 91 percent <v Different Speaker>operating uh cell service does for a legal stenographer. <v Different Speaker>I get the captain back and then somebody picked up before I got there. <v Different Speaker>We all do that. <v Different Speaker>I know. ?Inaudible? <v Different Speaker> They know that? Yes, sure. <v Different Speaker>My my nephew in law worked for the state, so <v Different Speaker>he informed the same ?Inaudible?

<v Different Speaker>Newspaper of the NFL. <v Different Speaker>They ran. Let him run for 10 days, 2 weeks, 3 weeks. <v Different Speaker>You know, I count one on the very day period. <v Different Speaker>First, it appeared that ?inaudible? <v Different Speaker>Filler ads in the newspaper and nothing but filler. <v Jim Murgon>Everybody was in the same boat as they were uh most were unemployed. <v Jim Murgon>We encourage other people to come out and had jobs for the psychological effect on the <v Jim Murgon>men that had they hadn't been able to talk to anybody from guess old maybe for 4 <v Jim Murgon>or 5, 6 months. They had a lot of complaining to do to get off their chest and we <v Jim Murgon>just let them talk. <v Unemployed Speaker 3>As an old man, you know I had a goal the time I spent on this stupid job. <v Unemployed Speaker 3>Uh to Jim, I thank you for it. <v Unemployed Speaker 3>But it wasn't good for me. <v Different Speakers>Yes and no. <v Different Speakers>?inaudible? For many jobs out there. <v Different Speakers>Just started very many jobs around. <v Different Speaker>I busted my butt, but I wasn't the man for it. <v Different Speaker>Well, I wasn't burned more, so I don't know why.

<v Different Speaker>Put it on my back. So I stand up again. <v Different Speaker>Well, I'll tell you what came out. <v Different Speaker>Burns all over himself. I don't have 3 boxes of Band-Aids and I don't know how much burn <v Different Speaker>ointment. Every night, I would have to patch him up again. <v Jim Murgon>A good part of the attitude was an attitude of hope that wasn't there when they <v Jim Murgon>first started. A lot of them were just uh just <v Jim Murgon>very much lost. They had tried the 3 or 4 companies that they could think of. <v Jim Murgon>And uh were just sort of at the end of their rope. <v Jim Murgon>They didn't know where else to look uh and the the opposite also occurred. <v Jim Murgon>I think there were a number of them that withdrew even further. <v Jim Murgon>That became quite bitter about everything. <v Jim Murgon>And then there were a number that also <v Jim Murgon>uh kind of lost the idealism that they started with. <v Jim Murgon>They kind of thought, well, they felt initially <v Jim Murgon>that that they had a place and a purpose in life, that their their <v Jim Murgon>work for all of these years had sort of earned them a certain spot in the community

<v Jim Murgon>and that their their job was more or less their <v Jim Murgon>livelihood. Everything was involved around their job. <v Jim Murgon>And initially, when they found out that they couldn't get another job in the <v Jim Murgon>same line of work, it is very depressing. <v Jim Murgon>But after a while, they began to lower their lower their standards <v Jim Murgon>and switch their their fields around, become a little more <v Jim Murgon>open to new suggestions and other things that they had maybe thought of a long <v Jim Murgon>time ago, but never, ever tried. <v Jim Murgon>And these men were able to get jobs in other areas. <v Jim Murgon>In some cases, um they were able to find even better <v Jim Murgon>jobs than they had had before. <v Host>Approximately 27 men of the original 40 found new jobs within the first year. <v Host>The organization credits 11 of these placements to group contacts. <v Host>The other 15 jobs the organization attributes to interaction within the group <v Host>and the sense of hope derived from findings and suggestions that were exchanged at weekly

<v Host>meetings. Most of the men who participated in the Gisholt self-help <v Host>organization believe that to a large extent it was responsible for their success <v Host>in finding work. Some look to it as a vital social activity that encouraged <v Host>them and gave them somewhere to go, something to look forward to in a week that could be <v Host>filled with disappointment. <v Host>One man described a feeling of usefulness he got from being able to help some of the <v Host>other men. He said the self-help organization kept me busy. <v Host>He was still unemployed, but he had a job. <v Host>The organization had a certain amount of impact on the community. <v Host>Employers were called and interviewed and working relationships were established with <v Host>community agencies like the Society of Personnel, Administrators and the National <v Host>Alliance of Businessmen. <v Host>One association was developed with the City View Machine and Service Repair Company, <v Host>a small company formed by a few ex- Gisholt employees in the early summer of 1971. <v Host>A City View salesman.

<v Different Speaker>There is a certain amount of envy when you're talking to U.S. <v Different Speaker>Steel or you're talking to a garage mechanic. <v Different Speaker>There's at that green eyed monster that rears its ugly head when they see <v Different Speaker>that somebody committed their whole family, their whole bank account, savings <v Different Speaker>account. So I was trying to make a success out of a business. <v Different Speaker>Nobody is permitted to start on a shoestring. <v Different Speaker>That's the unwritten law. <v Different Speaker>And these fellows are violated that law. <v Different Speaker>Now that they've seen the building expand, they said, oh, they're no longer <v Different Speaker>on a shoestring. Now these fellows are making money. <v Different Speaker>They must have money in the bank. Now we can do ?inaudible?. <v Different Speaker>We did not get anyone from Madison to come in here and ask for our services. <v Different Speaker>They were sending stuff down to Chicago and Milwaukee for repair and paying 3 times <v Different Speaker>the amount that they would be charged from here because they did not believe that anybody <v Different Speaker>starting on a shoestring had any any rights to start a business. <v Different Speaker>It's kind of a back alley type of psychology,

<v Different Speaker>but it's true. Yeah, and it's a tremendous commitment by the <v Different Speaker>individual here. This is what attracted me to it. <v Different Speaker>I came down here primarily to wish you good luck in everything after we'd been on a trip <v Different Speaker>and I wanted to the fellows to know that I. <v Different Speaker>Well, I was just all in favor of it and I noticed that they <v Different Speaker>didn't have a man on the road. <v Different Speaker>They didn't have someone pushing the name City View. <v Different Speaker>And the fact that they can offer this <v Different Speaker>as soon I thought Gee this is a place for me. <v Host>The original idea for a machine tool service repair company was developed by 2 <v Host>Gisholt service engineers several years before Gisholt closed. <v Host>Both men had worked at Gisholt for over 15 years, and when Gisholt was shut down, <v Host>both of them were, in their own words, ready to go. <v Host>One man owned about 10 acres of land on the east side of Madison. <v Host>Part of which served as a small golf range. <v Host>Between May and October 1971, the offices of the golf course became

<v Host>a home base for City View. Howard Thurlow and Carmen Hellekson began to take orders <v Host>for machine repair work, processing them on the road. <v Host>It was the same kind of work they had done at Gisholt. <v Host>In October, a corporation was formed with 6 other former Gisholt workers. <v Host>Much of the initial work was done by these 8 men, virtually on a voluntary basis. <v Host>If they did service work on the road, they were reimbursed for expenses. <v Host>But for several months they received no pay. <v Host>In late fall 1971, the Gisholt Self-Help Organization and some of City View's <v Host>directors began to work together. <v Host>City View continued to grow faster than anticipated. <v Host>Carmen Hellekson and Howard Thurlow. <v Carmen Hellekson>Well, we just started out doing service work first and then we decided we <v Carmen Hellekson>had no way of getting parch. <v Carmen Hellekson>So we didn't know what to do and we didn't know whether to keep on or <v Carmen Hellekson>what else ?inaudible? <v Carmen Hellekson>this building. So he says, let's incorporate.

<v Carmen Hellekson>Well, if that's the way you want to do it, that's the way we'll do it. <v Carmen Hellekson>I don't know how we got a hold of Professor Schmidts or he got a hold of us or something <v Carmen Hellekson>and everything started to roll. <v Howard Thurlow>Like I say, we've gone from nothing uh to <v Howard Thurlow>uh we're all we're over about 400,000 dollars. <v Howard Thurlow>I would say that we'll do another uh we will do atleast by the end of the year <v Howard Thurlow>if things go the way they are and at least another quarter of a 1,000,000 dollars <v Howard Thurlow>worth of business, I say in 5 years now they will do at least <v Howard Thurlow>5,000,000 or more business. <v Howard Thurlow>Because it's moving really fast and growing so that I mean, I don't think we're going to <v Howard Thurlow>have any problems being that we don't sell any new equipment, <v Howard Thurlow>but we rebuild old equipment. <v Howard Thurlow>And the they're uh not the uh business right now. <v Howard Thurlow>I don't think that people are not buying new equipment, but they want to <v Howard Thurlow>rebuild and have their old equipment uh brought up to

<v Howard Thurlow>run like a manufactured when they were bought, you know, 85 years. <v Howard Thurlow>At Gisholt, there's thousands machines all over the world and <v Howard Thurlow>uh there's actually nobody to do the work uh I mean, as <v Howard Thurlow>good as we can do it with the experience that we have. <v Howard Thurlow>And right now, we have we took a figure of the number <v Howard Thurlow>of machines in the years that uh our people have right now. <v Howard Thurlow>And it came to 7 years in experience and all types, <v Howard Thurlow>of Gisholt machines. <v Carmen Hellekson>We um started getting this machinery <v Carmen Hellekson>and we got the first lay down in the basement of that house after <v Carmen Hellekson>and moved in here and started rebuilding that. <v Carmen Hellekson>Then, we rebuilt a couple more than <v Carmen Hellekson>uh 1 2 of our customers. <v Carmen Hellekson>And we just started picking up after that. <v Carmen Hellekson>First one thing then another. <v Howard Thurlow>Lots of orders for parts we've got uh lots of uh we're working on the machines that we

<v Howard Thurlow>have bought and we're reconditioning to resell. <v Howard Thurlow>We're getting your offers on those machines. <v Howard Thurlow>They are for sale at this time. <v Howard Thurlow>And there's more coming up, of course. <v Interviewer>Where are your orders coming from to repair machines? <v Howard Thurlow>Oh, they're coming as far as Boston, Oklahoma, <v Howard Thurlow>uh down South. Chattanooga, Atlanta, Georgia <v Howard Thurlow>and uh Milwaukee. Of course, some of the big factor, they're now starting to get a <v Howard Thurlow>contact to do the work for them. We have men down there right now working <v Howard Thurlow>so much ?Inaudible?. <v Host>To form the corporation, an initial 25 blocks of stock were sold to only <v Host>ex Gisholt employees. <v Host>Only ex Gisholt employees were hired. <v Host>Dr. Smith acquired surplus government machines on loan to City View in exchange for <v Host>repair and payment of freight charges. <v Host>Dr. Smith also helped city views directors receive wage subsidies through the government <v Host>for vocational education and retraining. <v Host>Professor Osborne of the university provided capital to the corporation, enabling

<v Host>it to build more workspace and to expand its functions. <v Host>More machines were repaired. More orders for servicing were received from old Gisholt <v Host>customers throughout the United States, and more men were hired. <v Host>In April, City View broke ground for shop space and a new office. <v Host>The organization's rapid progress attracted new customers and the praise of government <v Host>officials. The mayor of Madison, William Dich. <v Host>[applause] <v Mayor William Dich>Honor and George President ?inaudible? <v Mayor William Dich>All ladies and gentlemen, members of the board of directors. <v Mayor William Dich>This is magnificent. I think that this has meant as <v Mayor William Dich>much to me today as anything that I've seen happen in the last <v Mayor William Dich>three years in Madison. Think of the uh success story <v Mayor William Dich>that we have going right here with people who are facing adversity, <v Mayor William Dich>facing the shutdown of a lifetime career, decided <v Mayor William Dich>that they weren't gonna stand for it and they set out to build something anew, <v Mayor William Dich>to build a new service that they will own and operate.

<v Mayor William Dich>I can't tell you how impressed I am with the guts you showed <v Mayor William Dich>in deciding to do this. <v Mayor William Dich>I think it's an illustration of how people who believe in something <v Mayor William Dich>can move mountains. <v Mayor William Dich>I think it illustrates how, as an example, a good idea <v Mayor William Dich>with the faith on the part of others, a willingness to sell <v Mayor William Dich>your service, uh participation through the <v Mayor William Dich>extension uh of credit, recognition of uh the importance <v Mayor William Dich>of an enterprise like this to a city, participation by banks, people <v Mayor William Dich>who have vision able to make something go. <v Mayor William Dich>I think this entire city is in your debt because you've proven that <v Mayor William Dich>the American dream can happen. <v Mayor William Dich>You've proven that if you have the courage, if you have <v Mayor William Dich>the will, that you can accomplish great things. <v Mayor William Dich>And so on behalf of your city, my hat is literally off

<v Mayor William Dich>to you today. And I take great pleasure in congratulating you <v Mayor William Dich>and extending to you the best wishes of your city. <v Mayor William Dich>Thank you very much. [applause] <v Host>By April, City View employed 24 workers. <v Host>Today it employs 38. <v Host>Many of the workers hired by City View are men over 50. <v Host>They were hired because the directors estimated that the older men would have a harder <v Host>time finding work than the others. <v Host>And somewhat altruistically, City View made room for them. <v Host>But the older men were also the ones who had had long experience servicing Gisholt <v Host>machines, and their skills would be necessary to train the other workers. <v Host>Because, City View was succeeding almost in the shadow of the dead company. <v Host>And because it was employing some of Gisholt's former workers at job, similar to the ones <v Host>the men had had before. City View became a source of hope for its new employees <v Host>and for the men who were still unemployed. <v Host>Many came to City View looking for work. <v Host>And the company in turn began to refer them to the mayor's office or other city agencies

<v Host>where there might be job openings. <v Host>Sentimentally, City View became a tribute to Gisholt for some of the workers. <v Host>Gisholt was being reborn. <v Host>The men would talk about setting up the same coffee pot and of substituting a round of <v Host>golf for the traditional Euchre game they had played at Gisholt. <v Host>We'll have the same thing here that we had at Gisholt. <v Host>They would say, or this is a family just like we had at Gisholt. <v Host>The men knew each other, the kind of work they did at City View was work they had been <v Host>trained for it at Gisholt And there was a considerable amount of variety to the day's <v Host>work because the company was small and because at first 90 percent of <v Host>the workers were also stockholders. <v Host>There was a sense of cooperation. <v Host>The men referred to the equipment as our equipment, our lights, our company. <v Host>They tended to ignore their differences. <v Host>They would claim that if there was a problem, everyone worked it out. <v Host>If the men once took orders at Gisholt, they were now directly involved in decision <v Host>making. <v Different Speaker>In a way, we started this, that but also something new and we are all learning <v Different Speaker>the game, you know, a game that nobody was in.

<v Different Speaker>No. I mean, we're all learning and had respect because we all got to get involved <v Different Speaker>more than just plain workers to make it work. <v Different Speaker>So we just stick our heads together and come up with a solution. <v City View Worker>I would say now it's a lot tougher. <v City View Worker>I mean, there's more time and more it's harder work. <v City View Worker>Actually, I did at Gisholt because I didn't have any responsibilities, only go <v City View Worker>out when I was shipped out and did the job. <v City View Worker>And that was the responsibility of money and <v City View Worker>uh by other people in Gisholt themselves. <v City View Worker>Now the shoes on the other foot. Now it's my responsibility where the money comes from, <v City View Worker>where the money goes. <v City View Worker>And it's a lot tougher. <v Different Speaker>A lot of who have been here since the setup of the business. <v Different Speaker>And I really, truly think that a part of them has been put into it <v Different Speaker>and a part of them is going into everything that they're doing, whether it be setting up <v Different Speaker>the machinery or establishing new jobs with other

<v Different Speaker>people or no matter what a paradigm is going into it. <v Different Speaker>And I think this is um far more personal <v Different Speaker>than it was at the Gisholt uh because at the Gishol, I think most of <v Different Speaker>them, went in and punched in a time clock and they did such and such a job and that was <v Different Speaker>it. Where in here, granted, they're doing almost the same <v Different Speaker>thing, but they're putting a part of themselves into it because knowing that it's going <v Different Speaker>to further the whole business and they're a part of it, I feel real good about it. <v Different Speaker>This is my trade. <v Different Speaker>And uh there isn't any other uh shop like <v Different Speaker>this in Madison. There's there's job shops, but rebuilding. <v Different Speaker>This is the best job I've had since a year and a half, since I got laid off at Gisholt. So I like it real lot. <v Speaker>I think if you if you go out today and you talk to these fellows the way things <v Speaker>are going. <v Speaker>Poverty, that's the best thing that ever happened.

<v Speaker>Because if it wasn't if it wasn't happened uh we'd still be <v Speaker>working there and we would probably had no future except uh when you get <v Speaker>when you get tired and retire. <v Speaker>You'd be out and uh this way we have the satisfaction we started something and we have <v Speaker>it. We can show people that it can be done regardless of what happens <v Speaker>to anybody. I say any company regards who they are. <v Speaker>If you have the people there with a goal, they can turn around and do the same thing we <v Speaker>did. <v Host>The success of the self-help organization in placing over half its members and the <v Host>development of the City View Corporation are essentially the result of the industry and <v Host>ability of a few individuals. <v Host>The self-help organization would not have been able to offer support and incentive to ex <v Host>Gisholt workers without the persistence of a few members of the group. <v Host>City View would have developed more slowly than it did and would have provided fewer jobs <v Host>and smaller financial returns. <v Host>If its directors, Professor Smith and Professor Osborne, had not been aware <v Host>of government wage subsidies or surplus machines that could be acquired on loan.

<v Host>No one came to City View with information or substantial financial backing in its early <v Host>stages. Perhaps the same men who found jobs with a self-help organization <v Host>would have found them without the group's help. <v Host>Most of the men, however, feel that the self-help union was important at a time when no <v Host>one else seemed to care. <v Host>How effective is the self-help approach? <v Host>Should self-help groups be encouraged as a resource for terminated workers? <v Host>Should more federal funds go to locally based, independently run self-help groups? <v Host>Should the government integrate the self-help concept into state employment offices? <v Host>Small business loans can be made available to returning veterans should similar <v Host>loans be provided for an unemployed worker who wants to invest in a small company? <v Host>Should government or private agencies help sponsor small companies before they are on <v Host>firm financial footing? <v Host>If self-help works, does it work despite government? <v Host>Can government help somewhere along the way? <v Host>Next week's program is called Unemployment 3 Manpower and Related Services.

<v Host>Gisholt Death of a Factory is a series of programs produced at the University of <v Host>Wisconsin Extension Radio Center. <v Host>This is Ronnie Hess. <v City View Worker>It was way things are right now. I take it for myself. <v City View Worker>I think things are worked out really well. <v City View Worker>I've been coming here to City View to work. <v City View Worker>It's my type of work type of work I like so <v City View Worker>personally I think it's okay. [program noise]