Gisholt: Death of a Factory; No. 8; Unemployment, Part 1. Get a Job

<v Host>Gisholt: Death of the Factory. A series of programs about termination and unemployment. <v Host>The 8th program in the series is called Unemployment One. <v Host>Get a job. The worker's point of view. <v Unemployed Speaker 1>The people that are working. No, they don't. <v Unemployed Speaker 1>I mean, you got to be unemployed for a while to realize what <v Unemployed Speaker 1>[pause] what it's like to be without a job, without an income. <v Unemployed Speaker 1>People talk about no jobs and people unemployment. <v Unemployed Speaker 1>You hear it on the radio, on TV percentage. <v Unemployed Speaker 1>You got to be unemployed to really know what it's like, what they're talking about. <v Unemployed Speaker 2>When you're kind of you're down in the sea, you're out of a job. <v Unemployed Speaker 2>It seems like, you know, how like you look at the statistics <v Unemployed Speaker 2>or you look at a figure of unemployment at 6 percent or 5.9. <v Unemployed Speaker 2>Whatever it is. But um I don't know if you have a little more feeling <v Unemployed Speaker 2>for these people, even though I'm back working now, I still have a feeling <v Unemployed Speaker 2>for these people and people who have been working during this time. <v Unemployed Speaker 2>And when lost a job, I can tell there's a lot of people who do not appreciate

<v Unemployed Speaker 2>what they do have or if they do have their security in that that <v Unemployed Speaker 2>uh they take many things for granted and don't really know. <v Unemployed Speaker 2>The next day could be their last day. <v Host>In January 1971, the Giddings and Lewis Corporation announced the closing <v Host>of its subsidiary, the Gisholt Machine Company. <v Host>What happened to the 1200 terminated workers? <v Host>Some of the older men dropped out of the labor force temporarily on rocking chair <v Host>money, unemployment compensation and supplemental employment pay. <v Host>Some permanently left the labor force before or at 65 if they had received <v Host>pensions. Some of the women also decided not to look for employment if they could <v Host>be supported by working husbands. <v Host>And if their wages from Gisholt had not been essential to the family's income. <v Host>Approximately 50 to 100 men remained at work in the foundry, wondering <v Host>whether it would remain open, whether their jobs would last. <v Host>Hoping to ride it out long enough to get a pension.

<v Host>Most of the men and women who were terminated had to look for new jobs. <v Host>Some of the older workers who had only known 1 kind of job or 1 company and who <v Host>hadn't gone job hunting in over 10 years, found unemployment a difficult situation. <v Host>But younger workers who had been at Gisholt for only a few years also felt insecure on <v Host>what 1 worker called the breadline. <v Host>They also wondered where and how to look for a job. <v Host>What was it like to be unemployed? Where did the men look for work? <v Host>First men applied at the largest companies in town, like Oscar Meyer or companies with <v Host>work most closely related to Gisholts': Ohio medical products, <v Host>?Rayovac, the Kip?and the St. Regis Company. <v Host>The men read ads in the newspaper and followed through on tips from friends. <v Host>They applied for work and unemployment compensation at the State Employment Service. <v Host>Some of the men were lucky, but most of the workers didn't find the jobs they were <v Host>looking for. As their unemployment compensation ran out, many men had to <v Host>accept jobs they didn't want. <v Host>Most of the workers agreed that being unemployed, being unable to find jobs they felt

<v Host>trained for, or even being employed at jobs they had to take was a degrading <v Host>and depressing experience. <v Unemployed Speaker 3>Well, it's very it's very degrading to begin with. <v Unemployed Speaker 3>It's it's uh it's extremely hard on the on the morale. <v Unemployed Speaker 3>Simply because it's 20 years, 20 years has passed before you've <v Unemployed Speaker 3>had to go out and look for a job. <v Unemployed Speaker 3>Basically the whole method and procedures are same of finding a job, but you don't <v Unemployed Speaker 3>necessarily know how to go about doing it. <v Unemployed Speaker 3>The attitudes of personnel people are different. <v Unemployed Speaker 3>It's just a hard thing to do with a. <v Unemployed Speaker 3>The first one, it was really rough because you didn't really know how to approach <v Unemployed Speaker 3>them on what what what they expect of you. <v Unemployed Speaker 3>And uh you'll begin to realize that uh <v Unemployed Speaker 3>you're just a number or a name and the human factor <v Unemployed Speaker 3>really isn't much. At least, until you are your hired. <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>Okay. You'd want to come into register with the Wisconsin State Employment Service.

<v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>We're located at 206 North Plum Street here in Madison, at the corner of Broome and <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>Dayton streets. Uh come in the front door to the registration desk, uh <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>tell the girl there what you want. Now, some people come in who are not unemployed, they <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>just want to change jobs. At any rate, if you're just seeking to change jobs or if you <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>want a job, we'll give you an application cart to fill out. <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>They'll be registering with us. <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>Uh the information on this card will be put into our computer system. <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>Uh chances are you'll go back to see an interviewer uh the first day that you're <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>here. Just so he can get some more facts and fully complete your application card. <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>And so that he will, he or she, will make sure that your card is put into our computer <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>system. <v Unemployed Speaker 4>Oh I sat here and typed on a typewriter. <v Unemployed Speaker 4>I answered every ad I could find and hundreds of em uh <v Unemployed Speaker 4>3 quarters of em, nobody ever answered you. Blamed ads in the paper, <v Unemployed Speaker 4>that's a waste of time.

<v Unemployed Speaker 4>At 57 years of age, it's a waste of time to even answer one. <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>For those people who would have some difficulty in uh finding <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>unemployment, they might not be as employable. <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>They do, for those who do want more personal service, they would uh go back to <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>see interviewers on their successive visits back to the office. <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>And uh for those people who have uh acute problems and finding work, <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>uh they may have physical or emotional handicaps or uh ?inaudible? <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>Police record, they may have a poor work history. <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>Uh they may have monetary problems. <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>Whatever the reason, if they are very hard to place, we have a counseling <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>uh unit for them and they can talk in some depth to vocational counselors who can <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>offer them advice, uh placement assistance, if necessary <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>aptitude testing. <v Unemployed Speaker 5>Um it's an it's an unpleasant experience. <v Unemployed Speaker 5>I did have a workman's compensation.

<v Unemployed Speaker 5>I mean, far 34 weeks, uh which wasn't so <v Unemployed Speaker 5>bad. But uh it does uh with family situation and being <v Unemployed Speaker 5>as it is, it does. <v Unemployed Speaker 5>uh put the pressure so we do have expenses that <v Unemployed Speaker 5>uh make it necessary for me to get something in the near future. <v Employment Worker>Well, the first thing we're going to want to know is where you've worked <v Employment Worker>in the last year. <v Employment Worker>Because to be eligible, a person must have at least 18 <v Employment Worker>weeks of covered employment. <v Employment Worker>Or if they don't have 18 weeks of covered employment, they must have 10 weeks <v Employment Worker>of covered unemployment, plus a 1000 dollars in outside uh <v Employment Worker>employment, not covered under their law. <v Employment Worker>The unemployment compensation program aims <v Employment Worker>at providing income to an employee while he's looking for another <v Employment Worker>job.

<v Employment Worker>A while back, an employer told me that he thought what we did was <v Employment Worker>pay people to look to stay unemployed. <v Employment Worker>But basically our approach is that we want to pay people to look for work <v Employment Worker>when they're trying to find a job. They should be entitled to benefits. <v Employment Worker>They first must register with the Employment Service and Employment Service, tries to <v Employment Worker>find them work kids, a free agency for that purpose. <v Employment Worker>If they can't find them work, then we are to help provide them with income <v Employment Worker>in order to keep them going. <v Unemplyoed Speaker 6>I was looking for 6 months. <v Unemplyoed Speaker 6>I was unemployed for 6 months before um I finally um landed <v Unemplyoed Speaker 6>a job. And um not once did the unemployment office come <v Unemplyoed Speaker 6>up with an interview for me. But I know at least 6 times, I had easily 6 interviews. <v Unemplyoed Speaker 6>Now where where was the employment office going wrong? <v Unemplyoed Speaker 6>Why couldn't they find these same interviews? <v Unemplyoed Speaker 6>I would have 2 different times. <v Unemplyoed Speaker 6>I was called in and say, what are you doing?

<v Unemplyoed Speaker 6>Looking for a job? So I I had given 1 time this man <v Unemplyoed Speaker 6>at the employment office listed 20 firms for different employers that had computers <v Unemplyoed Speaker 6>and I insist "there's my list" Now I insist, "what have you done for me <v Unemplyoed Speaker 6>in the last 3 or 4 weeks to help me find the job?" He had no answer. <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>Our computers uh receive information from every job <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>or that we get in our system and tries to match it against all the individuals <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>in our active applicant file. <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>So in essence, the computer is continually looking for workers for each new job order <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>we get. So in this respect, it's a don't call <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>us, we'll call you situation whereby if the computer does find something for a particular <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>individual, uh we can call them in or send them a voicecard <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>and tell them that we have something that they might be interested in. <v Wisconsin State Employment Service Worker>And then, we simply call the applicant. <v Unemployed Speaker 7>We had gone through 3 of them in Seattle and I'd still kept my job. <v Unemployed Speaker 7>And you get to the point where you become overly sure

<v Unemployed Speaker 7>of yourself thinking that you had weathered 3 of these programs in <v Unemployed Speaker 7>Seattle and it can't happen to me. <v Unemployed Speaker 7>But then suddenly you got a phone call from your boss, says, sorry, <v Unemployed Speaker 7>but as a day after tomorrow, we don't need you anymore. <v Unemployed Speaker 7>What do you do? You go home and say, well, it hit and you pick up all the things <v Unemployed Speaker 7>you can and scrape it together and and decide, should I hit the road <v Unemployed Speaker 7>and get out of Madison and try other places where there is industry? <v Unemployed Speaker 7>Or do you just spend a lot of money on long distance phone calls to people that you know <v Unemployed Speaker 7>in these cities and ask him what the labor market is like? <v Unemployed Speaker 7>And they in turn tell you, don't come here "There's just nothing here. <v Unemployed Speaker 7>I've been laid off myself." <v Unemployed Speaker 8>It was an 8 hour day. It was worse in the workday than uh out looking <v Unemployed Speaker 8>for a job itself and working itself, it was harder looking for a job than it was working. <v Unemployed Speaker 9>I resent the uh having to beg,

<v Unemployed Speaker 9>and this is what you're doing uh I'm over 40 years of age <v Unemployed Speaker 9>and now suddenly I've got to start from scratch again. <v Unemployed Speaker 9>Uh I was offered a job at another company here while I was still working at Gisholt. <v Unemployed Speaker 9>The man offered me a job at about a 1000 dollars more a year than what I <v Unemployed Speaker 9>was making. I went back after I was laid off and I went back. <v Unemployed Speaker 9>That job was still available, but suddenly that dropped almost 5000 dollars in <v Unemployed Speaker 9>value. They say it's an employer's market and this is what kills <v Unemployed Speaker 9>you. <v Host>When many of the workers returned to the labor market. <v Host>They realized that Madison was unprepared for Gisholt's Closing. <v Host>The men were essentially on their own in the job hunt. <v Host>Offices of the State Employment Service placed as many men as they could. <v Host>Approximately 15 percent of those who applied. <v Host>But the employment service could only offer the men jobs that had been processed with <v Host>their office. If an employer didn't file a job order with the employment service, <v Host>the men wouldn't be called in.

<v Host>Some plant shut down studies have indicated that a man's own initiative and the advice of <v Host>friends are sometimes more successful factors in job placement than employment <v Host>services. There were few jobs available in Madison requiring the same or <v Host>similar skills that the men had had at Gisholt. <v Host>Workers were reminded that Madison is a light industrial community. <v Host>Most of its companies are small and the job market can only accommodate so many workers. <v Host>At the time the workers were terminated from Gisholt, there was a general recession not <v Host>only in the machine tool industry, but in other industries as well. <v Host>Unemployment figures rose and there was little hiring either in Madison or in more <v Host>industrial cities to the southeast. <v Host>Some of the men also learned that the skills they had acquired at Gisholt were not <v Host>transferable to other jobs and other companies. <v Host>They were job related or specialized skills, valuable and well-paid at Gisholt, <v Host>but not necessarily elsewhere. <v Host>At the time of closing, Professor Gerald Summers of the University of Wisconsin was <v Host>conducting a survey on training and skill acquisition at Gisholt for the Department of <v Host>Labor. When termination was announced, Professor Summers staffed, did an early follow

<v Host>up study of the men. <v Professor Summers>Of those who were most easily uh employed in other occupations <v Professor Summers>and other firms. Skilled and semi-skilled workers <v Professor Summers>um found employment much more readily than the unskilled workers. <v Professor Summers>Presumably those who uh received the most training at Gisholt and <v Professor Summers>had the most uh investment in their skill development earlier were the ones <v Professor Summers>who were uh able to find employment most readily after. <v Professor Summers>Also from the standpoint of earnings, those <v Professor Summers>who maintained their earnings best after the plant shut down <v Professor Summers>were those who were able to obtain employment in jobs most closely <v Professor Summers>related to their Gisholt job. <v Professor Summers>The further they had to depart from what they were doing at Gisholt, usually <v Professor Summers>almost invariably in a downward direction the greater their income drop, <v Professor Summers>even if they were employed after Gisholt uh shut down

<v Professor Summers>and this perhaps is not overly surprising. <v Professor Summers>This is somewhat typical of um semi-skilled workers who have a skill <v Professor Summers>that is important in a particular plant, and I guess they <v Professor Summers>begin to think of themselves as skilled. <v Professor Summers>And in some ways they're making a very important contribution in a particular kind of <v Professor Summers>plant or industry. It's not true only of Gishot. <v Professor Summers>In fact, perhaps less of Gisholt than some of those and other <v Professor Summers>plant shutdown studies like the meatpackers and the armor <v Professor Summers>plants or the coal miners uh we usually classify them as semiskilled. <v Professor Summers>But it's a skill that's particular to that industry or company <v Professor Summers>and they're fairly highly paid. <v Professor Summers>But when they're laid off, they find that it is not a transferable skill <v Professor Summers>that although is very important in the industry or company in which <v Professor Summers>they were working previously.

<v Professor Summers>It's not really needed, not wanted in most other industries <v Professor Summers>or plants in the community, especially in a community such as Madison, which isn't a <v Professor Summers>highly industrialized community, not much of an industrial mix. <v Professor Summers>So that many of these workers who were getting high wages at Gisholt <v Professor Summers>found that they simply couldn't transfer that skill to other companies that had a high <v Professor Summers>productive contribution only at Gisholt. <v Professor Summers>On the other hand, something like a tool and die maker is a universally <v Professor Summers>needed high skill and is transferable. <v Professor Summers>And uh this is, I think, the distinction between the truly skilled workers classified <v Professor Summers>as skilled in the dictionary of occupational titles and those who thought of themselves <v Professor Summers>a skill because they're doing a fairly high paid job at Gisholt, but we're really <v Professor Summers>classified as semiskilled. <v Host>John Dorsey writes in the Mac cases in unemployment, quote, "Most workers <v Host>felt a strong geographic attachment to their area. <v Host>They owned homes. They had children in school.

<v Host>They had friends and relatives in the area and were active in civic affairs. <v Host>Workers who found new jobs after the shutdown were in general earning much less than they <v Host>had received at Mac. Most of them were dissatisfied with their new jobs and were still <v Host>searching for other employment", unquote. <v Host>In his article, Consequences of Plant Closure, A study of the armor plant closing in <v Host>Kansas City. James Stern writes that each additional year of age tended to depress <v Host>a worker's annual earnings, while each additional year of education increased them. <v Host>Quote, "Although the studies that were conducted more than a year after the shutdown do <v Host>not prove that this drop in relative income position is permanent, it appears likely <v Host>that it is. The 40 year old worker with 15 years seniority who starts a <v Host>new in the job market, competes on less favorable terms than he did when he found his <v Host>former job" unquote, at Gisholt. <v Host>The older worker tended to remain unemployed longer. <v Host>His new job paid relatively less than the Gisholt job. <v Host>The older a worker was, and the longer he had been in the community, the less likely he

<v Host>was able to relocate, transfer or retrain. <v Host>Professor Summers has concluded that at Gisholt, some men may have become so discouraged <v Host>that they left the labor force entirely. <v Unemployed Speaker 8>This guy, Harry Hopper and I worked in the same office for, <v Unemployed Speaker 8>well, 15 years. Back to back with our desk <v Unemployed Speaker 8>and he is working for the city, Zula, here. <v Unemployed Speaker 8>He is 57 years old, same as I am. <v Unemployed Speaker 8>The only thing he could find at his age. <v Unemployed Speaker 8>They keep telling you that. <v Unemployed Speaker 8>There's no discrimination about age or anything else but they all write so <v Unemployed Speaker 8>you wrote your education isn't uh what they require or <v Unemployed Speaker 8>uh your height or your health or something. <v Unemployed Speaker 8>You have something something. They got some excuse to give your other <v Unemployed Speaker 8>than age. But we all know that it's age because <v Unemployed Speaker 8>they sh away from me in a hurry. <v Different Speaker>You can't really um document anything like this.

<v Different Speaker>This is really subjective uh question. <v Different Speaker>I'm sure that there are cases, no matter where you go in any labor market <v Different Speaker>throughout the country where there are uh questions of discrimination. <v Different Speaker>Undoubtedly you will find some discrimination, but it would you would <v Different Speaker>possibly be of a nature whereby, you know, <v Different Speaker>nothing could be proved by it. <v Different Speaker>It's hard to say because something like this discrimination can be covered up <v Different Speaker>to look like it's not discrimination. <v Different Speaker>You know, it's it's a very subjective, hazy matter. <v Unemployed Speaker 9>It was hard enough to find a job, but they don't want anybody looking at 50 years old. <v Unemployed Speaker 9>You can figure out get a younger man. <v Unemployed Speaker 9>Why breaking an old buck. The younger guy. <v Different Speaker>Where did you look? <v Unemployed Speaker 9>Oh employment agency and anybody that tell me bout it and go see about it. <v Unemployed Speaker 9>You watch the newspapers answered several ads.

<v Unemployed Speaker 9>They'd all say, well, don't call me, I'll call you so just as much as saying <v Unemployed Speaker 9>no. <v Unemployed Speaker 9>Went around, put my name in different places. But I didn't ever get a call in any place. <v Unemployed Speaker 9>[background TV noise] <v Speaker 10>Sometimes you do take something and it almost beyond would like. <v Speaker 10>I took a job in heating work, which I'd worked at before. <v Speaker 10>I had a lot of work to do in a row with a crew and had <v Speaker 10>to work 10, 11, 12 hours a day, and I at my age would <v Speaker 10>be alive. I don't feel at all that I'm going to work for hours a day. <v Speaker 10>I do. You can't take that kind, you come home so tired. <v Speaker 10>You can't even sit down, eat your supper. <v Speaker 10>What good is it? <v Speaker 10>And uh it couldn't, you know, afterwards, I quit, <v Speaker 10>couldn't take it. But live that way. <v Speaker 10>I'll quit. I'll sell my house, Im going on relief for work that way. <v Speaker 10>I want employment for a long time. <v Speaker 10>It went up to the hearing, I showed.

<v Speaker 10>He showed a half hour late. <v Speaker 10>I won. I got some of it back. <v Employment Worker>We have had uh cases where an employee has tried another job <v Employment Worker>and has worked more than 10 weeks at that job, <v Employment Worker>and having quit them was disqualified for having quit. <v Employment Worker>One of the provisions of our quitting law and <v Employment Worker>in an attempt to have employees try other work is that if he <v Employment Worker>tries a new job and quit that job within <v Employment Worker>the first 10 weeks of his work, and if we would have given him a good cause <v Employment Worker>for refusing it in the first instance. <v Employment Worker>Then he will not be suspended from his prior employers. <v Employment Worker>However, if he works over 10 weeks for a given employer, that particular provision can't <v Employment Worker>be used. <v Employment Worker>Other uh Gisholt employees have been suspended because <v Employment Worker>after having been unemployed for an extended period of time, they refused

<v Employment Worker>work that paid the going rate of pay for that kind of work <v Employment Worker>in this area, even though it paid less than the man was getting at <v Employment Worker>Gisholt. And when that does happen, we have suspended them for having <v Employment Worker>refused that job. <v Different Speaker>When I I went first went up, reported that I did quit. <v Different Speaker>Then, of course, they called him and he said, no, he didn't have a reason to quit. <v Different Speaker>He didn't tell them that he cut my wages a dollar an hour. <v Different Speaker>You didn't tell them you would work me twelve hours a day. <v Different Speaker>There's no law on this date that says a man can ask you to work 5 hours a day or pretend <v Different Speaker>you are working 12 hours a day? There's no law. <v Different Speaker>As in all legal proceedings where <v Different Speaker>one person says one thing and another person says another. <v Different Speaker>The person who has to make the decision, looks at <v Different Speaker>false statements and tries to decide which one is the correct one. <v Different Speaker>Someone along the line has to make that decision.

<v Different Speaker>The basis for unemployment compensation is that this is an employee law <v Different Speaker>and where the wait is equal, <v Different Speaker>we are to presume that the employee should be given the <v Different Speaker>benefit of the doubt. I don't know what case this is, but I <v Different Speaker>would have to believe that in talking with both the employer <v Different Speaker>and the employee, the person who made the decision felt that this <v Different Speaker>employer's uh statements were more accurate as to the working <v Different Speaker>conditions than employees. <v Unemployed Speaker 10>I didn't think when I was had to have a hearing and wait 4 months for. <v Unemployed Speaker 10>I don't know why did they decide to do it that way? <v Unemployed Speaker 10>I don't know. I don't think long if I had all this time coming from Gisholt. <v Unemployed Speaker 10>If I couldn't stand to work on a job I should had. <v Unemployed Speaker 10>They should have been no question about it. They should've just got my employment back. <v Unemployed Speaker 10>Same with other fellows who didn't even look for jobs.

<v Unemployed Speaker 10>They just took all the unemployment they had come in and they worry about a job when they <v Unemployed Speaker 10>run out of that. <v Host>Problems and reemployment can be compounded by some of the following situations or <v Host>variables. The length of stay a worker had with one company. <v Host>The nature of his skill, the kind of industrial community the worker lived in. <v Host>The nature of supply and demand at the time he was terminated, his age, his <v Host>mental and physical health, his education, his personality, the degree <v Host>of community attachment. <v Host>Some men looked elsewhere for jobs if they could afford to, but many returned to Madison. <v Host>A few considered temporary transfer to Gettings and Lewis. <v Host>But apparently most of the positions offered in Fond du Lac were for salaried workers, <v Host>not the hourly paid. Many refused to go on principle or because the work <v Host>was only for a few months. <v Host>There are obvious economic repercussions from termination and from unemployment, but <v Host>there are psychological consequences too that interact and affect one another. <v Host>Donald Tiffany, chief psychologist at the High Plains Comprehensive Health Center in

<v Host>Hays, Kansas, and author of The Unemployed. <v Donald Tiffany>When a person is terminated, there immediately is some concern <v Donald Tiffany>about his own identity. <v Donald Tiffany>Now, we have to think of that in terms of defining job as <v Donald Tiffany>something different than in defining work. <v Donald Tiffany>When we talk about work, we're usually talking <v Donald Tiffany>about the individual's ability to express himself in some graphic <v Donald Tiffany>way and perform in a way that fits with <v Donald Tiffany>his own personality structure and determination <v Donald Tiffany>means separating that individual from that kind of an expression <v Donald Tiffany>are that outlet, which in many instances is extremely <v Donald Tiffany>important to people. <v Donald Tiffany>Now, in the case of a termination from a job that is something consensually <v Donald Tiffany>validated by a group of others who say that certain

<v Donald Tiffany>operations should be performed here and it can be performed by anybody, regardless <v Donald Tiffany>of their own personality structure, own <v Donald Tiffany>identity, then if you lose a job like that, <v Donald Tiffany>for whatever reason, it's less traumatic. <v Donald Tiffany>It doesn't raise the conflicts that it does. <v Donald Tiffany>In the case of one who say, for instance, is an engineer identified <v Donald Tiffany>very closely with the operations of his job, only to find <v Donald Tiffany>that he must now reconstruct the new self-concept, <v Donald Tiffany>develop new relationships, and to alter <v Donald Tiffany>his own manner of looking <v Donald Tiffany>at the way he likes to express himself. <v Donald Tiffany>Such conflicts that the individual experiences in this <v Donald Tiffany>way are not limited to his own feelings about himself <v Donald Tiffany>and the degrading of himself.

<v Donald Tiffany>But it also has implications for his family, <v Donald Tiffany>for his relationship, specifically to his wife, and to past friends. <v Different Speaker>I'm not happy, she's unhappy, creates friction in the family. <v Different Speaker>Tempers are short. <v Different Speaker>I can see why. <v Different Speaker>Well, when you have bills, people come in the door, ask you for money. <v Different Speaker>It's a frustrating thing. <v Different Speaker>I can understand those statistics for low income families break up. <v Different Speaker>I can see why. If you don't adjust yourself to the situation. <v Donald Tiffany>Many of the times when somebody would ask him, say, who are you? <v Donald Tiffany>His definition of himself would be locked into many of the characteristics or <v Donald Tiffany>performances that he carries out within a given particular <v Donald Tiffany>job. <v Donald Tiffany>Now when someone comes along and says you can no longer do that. <v Donald Tiffany>That is an internal shakeup. <v Donald Tiffany>A great deal of frustration develops from that feelings

<v Donald Tiffany>of rage, feelings of anger, feelings of how do I strike back? <v Donald Tiffany>What can I do about this kind of a situation? <v Donald Tiffany>And it's a sense of lostness that that fate <v Donald Tiffany>and chance and any other external force <v Donald Tiffany>has more to do with the kind of direction you take in your own life <v Donald Tiffany>than any decisions or skills that you may have or possess. <v Donald Tiffany>The feeling is that there is something <v Donald Tiffany>wrong with me and it generally moves from a more positive <v Donald Tiffany>to a more negative attitude about himself. <v Donald Tiffany>This limits his ability to approach others in <v Donald Tiffany>the sense of looking for jobs. <v Donald Tiffany>And it ends up with an increase of time off <v Donald Tiffany>or an increased period between jobs as a function <v Donald Tiffany>of termination, because one doesn't quite know how to go about

<v Donald Tiffany>reestablishing himself and what direction he should take, whether <v Donald Tiffany>he should move to a lower level of job skill <v Donald Tiffany>and less pay because of the new self-conception that he has, or should <v Donald Tiffany>he try to go hire train himself better or what? <v Donald Tiffany>That's not clear to him. <v Host>On the average, it took most of the men I met 6 months to a year and a half to find work. <v Host>Many of them tried several jobs during that time. <v Host>Almost all the men complained about dejection and feelings of rejection. <v Host>Some mentioned loss of pride and self-esteem, a sense of not being useful, of <v Host>being inactive and unproductive. <v Host>Some workers felt they had been exploited or discriminated against. <v Host>For many workers, readjustment was difficult. <v Host>Although this was true for older workers, it could also hold true for younger workers, <v Host>especially if they had had a history of unsuccessful jobs before going to Gisholt. <v Host>Salaried workers, as well as the hourly paid, had problems finding <v Host>work in their field or changing careers in midstream.

<v Host>Some men returned to part time farming or opened their own business. <v Host>Some used much of their savings. <v Host>Roughly a dozen went on welfare. After 2 years, some men were and are <v Host>still unemployed. Some men expected no assistance in finding new employment, <v Host>and when they succeeded, they were glad they had obtained jobs on their own without help. <v Host>But many men felt the transition they had to make was not ameliorated by government <v Host>agencies and should have been. <v Host>Are their criticisms legitimate or the product of bitterness which resulted from their <v Host>termination? In 2 weeks, Unemployment 3 manpower and related <v Host>services. The community's resources for the unemployed. <v Host>Next week's program Unemployment to Self-Help. <v Host>Does It Work? Considers job counseling services at the Gisholt Self-Help Organization. <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 Different Speaker>I can understand why there isn't any jobs around. <v Different Speaker>Even in a big city like Madison, compression or recession or whatever they call

<v Different Speaker>it? When is it going to end? It sure is getting discouraging.