Poem: Preoccupied

Illustration: The Lord Provides, by Jacob Burck.
Lithograph. 1934. Courtesy of M. Lee Stone Fine Prints.

 
 
 
 
I was laid off for about one year during the ‘80’s recession. Unemployment in northern Illinois was about twenty percent. On that first Monday of the lay-off, I made an early start (or so I thought) to the Unemployment Office. When I got there, the line was already running outside the building, down the sidewalk, through the parking lot and out to the street. We were all stomping our feet, trying to keep warm.

As it turns out, nearly every Monday at the Unemployment Office was like that. The weeks passed by. Then one day while waiting at the Unemployment Office, I learned that there were some company guys hiring people right on the spot. I jumped into a line that snaked around little office cubicles, where it looked like people were getting interviewed for jobs. I noticed that there was something odd about the interview process, because it seemed to be extremely brief – less than a couple of minutes. Then one guy brushed by me, muttering, “They’re hiring scabs for Metalcrafter’s…”

Metalcrafter’s was the new name for the National Lock Company, an old manufacturing firm located in Rockford. UAW workers were on strike at the facility. The company was using the Job Service at the Unemployment Office to turn honest workers into scabs.

I hadn’t figured all this out yet until suddenly, it was my turn to sit down in front of the interviewer. He asked me nothing about my qualifications, but launched in to this spiel about congregating at the Metro Center (Rockford’s performing arts venue) to ride a bus to work. I thought this was really weird. I got up from the interview before it was done and stood in another line to talk to a woman behind the counter. When I got a chance to speak with her, I said that it was a travesty that our Job Service – mostly funded by working class people – was taken over by a scab-herding outfit.

“You’re on a federal extension of your unemployment benefits, Mr. Mills. If you turn down any job for which you are qualified, you stand to lose these benefits,” she replied.

I don’t recall just how I answered her after that, but I’m certain that it wasn’t very nice. Perhaps it was just a simple gesture. I wrote a complaining letter to Illinois Governor “Big Jim” Thompson, but received no response.

I’m no hero. However, I never took that scab bus ride across the picket line. Somehow, my family made it through the recession and I remained true to my convictions. My oldest daughter was born during that time. We had to argue with my ex-employer and the insurance company over the medical bills – regarding exactly when she was conceived!

That’s my story. But that’s just how the one percent operates: They’ll pit the desperate against the hungry & desperate if that’s what it takes to increase their profits. If the government won’t take care of our jobless sisters and brothers, then we must see to it that they get adequate food, clothing, housing, medical care, education, etc. If we are forced to occupy vacant buildings and empty the stores in order to fulfill these critical needs, then so be it.
 
 
Tim Mills profile

Tim Mills is a labor educator/activist and began this life as a conscientious objector during the Viet Nam War. He is a long-time union member and has served as an elected official, but claims to be proudest of his work on union newsletters. Mills writes guest columns appearing in the Rockford Register Star and other publications located in northern Illinois where he resides. Although Mills acknowledges that his politics are leftist, he believes that as radicals we must start with the world as it is, not as we’d wish it to be.