For What It’s Worth

Posted on November 13, 2023 by Marty Ryan

The topic of professional baseball salaries came up in discussion in a bar one sunny afternoon in 1980. One person at the table was rigid in his opinion that no professional athlete is worth a million dollars. In November of 1979, Nolan Ryan (no relation to the author) signed a four-year contract with the Houston Astros for $4.5 million dollars. Ryan became the first Major League Baseball player to achieve a salary of one-million-dollars or more per year. “$4,000,000 in 1979 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $16,958,071.63 today.” And yet, today’s free agents in the baseball market are turning down qualifying offers of $20.325 million. Many of them could sign lucrative contracts with a few million more. And none of them can hold a candle to Nolan Ryan, who threw seven no-hitters, three more than any other individual pitcher in baseball history.

My argument then is the same one I use today. If someone can get paid a million-dollars, they are worth it. That afternoon at the bar I was sitting with three people. The person I was debating owned a business. I was a working stiff in a packing plant. Naturally, as a business owner, he would be outraged that an employee would suggest they were not being paid what they were worth. As a union member, I was content with what I was being paid. The union wages were negotiated in good faith between management and Labor representatives to assure that each and every employee was worth a particular amount within a range. Fair is fair.

I understood the business owner’s position, but I disagreed. In many businesses where management consists of the boss and several employees, it is not unusual for the boss to make the most money. That concept applies to professional sports, as well. Baseball team owners seldom cry poverty. Oh, wait, unless they want a new stadium. But the economic model of supply and demand is just as evident in baseball, football, basketball, and a few other professional sports teams as it is in any American business. Women’s sports is finally catching up, but women’s sports in general lag far behind. Are the women athletes worth more? My opinion would be that they are; if the team ownership has the excessive profit margin prevalent in men’s sports

More than once I have heard a non-union member say that they were worth more than a coworker, and that was their reasoning behind not joining a union. However, the belief behind that unsettling statement is that if the employer desires to pay people what they think they are worth, without a union contract, that person claiming they are worth so much more is going to find out that they are worth less than their ego imagines. In that scenario, every employee’s wage will decrease, including the person who believes they are worth more than any co-employee.

When I was discharged from the Army, I collected unemployment for a while until I decided to go back to the job I had worked when I was drafted, working at Marvin’s Provisions. There were a few people there who weren’t working there when I left. Terry L. was one of those employees. It wasn’t long after I restarted my job at Marvin’s when Terry asked me how much I was making. I learned a long time ago that it’s not a good idea to ask that question when there is no formal policy or contract in place. But I answered his question with a question. “How much are you making?” We exchanged information on our hourly wages, and I found out he was making several dimes an hour more than me. Although I had a few years of experience, and that experience was with Marvin’s, he had been hired not more than a few months before I was rehired and had no experience whatsoever.

One day, we gathered to unload the beef truck. As usual, it had front quarters and hind quarters weighing between 120 pounds to 180 pounds each. Occasionally, there might be a bull carcass on the back end of the truck. As you can imagine, a bull carcass weighs considerably more than a heifer or steer. Sometimes two men would unload it together. I thought the practice was clumsy and dangerous. There was a bull carcass on this particular day, and I told everyone to stand aside as I moved in on the front quarter and lifted it myself. I moved it from the back of the truck to the waiting meat hook roller that Floyd was holding. It required lifting, turning, and walked two to three steps. I laid the quarter on the roller and Floyd rolled it down to the scale. “326 pounds!” Marvin yelled back. “A new record for one person.”

“Roll it back here!” I requested. I didn’t think they would, but the huge front quarter was rolled back to the rear of the truck, and I asked Floyd to hold the hook. He smiled. He knew what I was doing. I picked the quarter up, turned around and dropped it back onto the meat hook in the truck.

“There!” I said loudly so that everyone in the place could hear me. “Let Terry take it off the truck. I quit!”

I took off my apron, white coat, silly hat and punched out.

I was walking home when a car pulled up next to me. It was Marvin. He was trying to convince me to come back to work.

“Can I make more than Terry?”

“No.”

“Just as much as Terry?”

“No, Terry needs the money more because he’s married.”

Marvin received my favorite answer to stupid statements: “Go fuck yourself!” I went home to lunch.

I thought I had proved that I was worth more than Terry. Probably not. He kept his job.

 

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Picking Sides

Posted on November 6, 2023 by Stephanie Fawkes-Lee

My soon-to-be ex-husband was helping me paint the outside of our house in preparation for putting it on the market.  I noticed that the neighbors across the street were chatting with him and pointedly ignoring me.

When they left, I said, “Guess you got the neighbors in the divorce.”

“Did you want them?” He asked.

The strange part was they rarely talked to him before that day, while I had spent considerable time listening to them.  They really didn’t know either one of us, but based on little information felt this need to choose a side. Since we were both moving away, the consequences were negligible.  If I had remained, other neighbors could have joined them, attempting to make my life after marriage miserable with malicious gossip and ostracizing me and my children.

Our neighbors across the street weren’t the only people to take sides during our divorce, which was odd.  When did the ending of a marriage between two people turn into a team sport?  It brought back those traumatizing memories from childhood when team captains would pick their players one-by-one until that one poor little kid stood alone, rejected not by one team, but by two. At least this picking of people has a purpose, to get the best players on your team in order to win. There can also be a popularity factor, wanting your friends to play on your team.

Popularity is key as we enter high school. When I started at a new high school, the leader of the “popular people” clique thought she was doing me a favor by advising me not to talk to other girls that this group apparently found unworthy. So now conditions were being put on picking.  I would only be accepted into the group if other people controlled who I was allowed to talk to. I wasn’t willing to make this sacrifice.

The political power play of picking gets more complex as we grow older.  Now is the time to get picky about picking. Your future happiness may be determined by which village you attempt to join: a religious organization, a political party, business organizations, volunteer organizations, self-help groups, country clubs, etc. Be warned, adults put self-interest first and foremost and just because you pick them doesn’t mean they will return the favor. You may end up like that poor little kid that never got picked by either team. So, tread carefully down this prickly path.

The art of picking isn’t for the meek of heart. Similar to warfare, there are all sorts of unwritten rules that must be followed, or you will be properly punished. Rule number one: Don’t think for yourself.  The group leaders will do this for you and all you have to do is follow whatever is dictated.  Rule number two: Check all personal values and integrity at the door.  The group will tell you what your values will now be, and integrity just gets in the way of achieving key targets.  Rule number three:  When a member of the group attempts to question or speak out against a decision of leadership, it is your responsibility to blindly unify with other members and eliminate this perceived threat.  Since there are a number of other rules that aren’t made public, the best course of action is to sit quietly during all meetings and events.  Even what may seem to be harmless “small talk,” may be viewed as dangerous or offensive speech. Leaders will state that they want to hear from people and are open to innovative ideas, but don’t fall into this trap.  Just smile and nod. Diversity and innovation are the mortal enemies of conformity.

My beloved godmother, who respected and lived by the village rules once told me, “That my life would be easier if I didn’t speak out.”  You see, my life has been littered with groups that have ganged-up and eliminated me for not following the rules. But someone needs to be speak-out against injustice, and if getting ousted is the consequence for retaining self-respect and integrity, so be it.  I’m quite content to limit my picking these days to the apples, peaches and pears that grow on the trees in our yard.

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By Any Other Name

Posted on October 20, 2023 by Marty Ryan

Why do humans name cats? They never come when you call. If you have a routine that lets them know it’s time to eat, they will come running. But most of all, the cat will be there staring at you with a look on its face that implies ‘where in hell have you been? I’ve been hungry for a whole five minutes now.’

No matter which species of cat you have, the animal will not acknowledge you unless it gives permission. Yet, we call them by a name we have given them, and they ignore it.

Cats are nocturnal, primarily. They will sleep at night, but don’t be fooled. Have you never woken past midnight to see a cat staring out the window in the middle of the night, yearning to be out there among its friends?

Cats are fussy eaters. It is difficult to try different brands of food on them. They’ll turn their nose up on it and refuse to eat until you replace that generic stuff with some of the most expensive food on the shelf. And yet, they’ll eat almost anything they can find in the wild during their romp around town in the wee hours of the morning.

They will never let you know where they are. A cat can be gone for days, and you’ll worry about its welfare until it comes home. Don’t try to scold it; it doesn’t pay attention to what you say.

Sleeping the day away is one of its favorite pastimes. In the sun, on the couch, in a bedroom on top of an unmade bed, cats will sleep like what seems forever. Then, when you make a noise, it will stretch, arch its back, and move on to some other place where you can’t bother it.

But cats are lovable. That’s why we have them. They are capable of giving us love and companionship. Unlike dogs, who come running from anywhere in the house to greet you when you arrive home, cats will slowly emerge from a far-off room to see if you brought them something while you were away. And if you did, don’t wait around for a ton of thanks. It’s as if it was a gift they deserve, and you finally came through.

But with all their faults, we still love our cats – immensely!

Now, go back and read the essay one more time, and instead of the word “cat,” replace it with “teenager.”

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That’s the Ticket!

Posted on October 12, 2023 by Marty Ryan

Cheap entertainment is hard to find when you reach my age.

As we were getting ready to walk the trail near our residence, a City of Des Moines police car was sitting on the curb in front of our house. I told Stephanie that the officer must have found a nice spot to do his paperwork. All of sudden he took off quickly, turned on his flashing overhead panel lights, and made a left turn at the corner. Hardly anyone turns left at that corner.

Since my back was hurting too badly to walk on that day, we returned home. We drove the Explorer to the store three blocks away rather than worry about injuring my back further. Upon returning from the store, the squad car was in front of our house once again. And again, he peeled out, engaging his lights, and turned left at the corner. We realized that the police officer was chasing cars that failed to stop, or even slow down, at a stop sign on the corner of the block not more than 150 feet from our property.

Years ago, the neighborhood group, Stephanie, I and several neighbors worked for twenty months to get a couple of stop signs at the corner. Without the stop signs, vehicles would race from one end of the street on the south side to the far northern limit of the street on the north side. There is a day care facility situated on the corner. The street is level with a length that comes just short of a half-mile. There are no connecting streets on the east side (it’s a community green space), and there are four feeder streets on the west side. Naturally, with two used car dealerships and an auto repair shop on the south end of the street, it was a testing ground in which potential car buyers and auto mechanics attempted to set Craig Breedlove’s land speed records.

It wasn’t city hall that fought us as much as the bureaucrats that seem to be the deciders about where stop signs may be placed. It took the death of a young motorcycle rider traveling at a high rate of speed down the road to get the Des Moines City Council to overrule the paper-pushers and vote to have stop signs placed at the corner.

At first, there was a mix of people who saw the signs from a safe distance and stopped. A few drivers drove through the area as they did, most likely not realizing that stop signs were newly erected. After a while, everything seemed to fall into place. Then, drivers became lazy. Many slowed down, but didn’t stop. It morphed into a dangerous intersection once again as the stop signs were totally ignored. I never realized that ignore and ignorance were so closely related.

Stephanie and I had to leave the house again. We walked over to the squad car and let the officer know that we approved of what he was doing, and asked him if he was acting upon a complaint. Smiling, he told us that the complaint was old, but that he had some time to work on the problem. In forty-five minutes, he had handed out nine citations. I noticed that he had gotten two in one stop. He was having fun. He mentioned that while he had one car pulled over another drove past him and right through the stop sign.

While talking to him, a blue car ran the stop sign traveling north and drove right up the street where we were. We waved him bye, he turned on the lights, and followed the car into the driveway across the street. Our neighbor was carpooling with a coworker and the coworker was the culprit driving through the stop sign at the bottom of the hill. It was strange to see a cop car go across the street to nail a violator.

I have no idea what we’ll do for entertainment next week.

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Whether to go or Weather to stay

Posted on October 5, 2023 by Marty Ryan

“Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” I had always thought the first to say it was Benjamin Franklin. No, when it comes to weather, Ben Franklin said: “Some people are weatherwise, some are otherwise.” The first to conceive that brilliant observation regarding no solution to weather complaints is often credited to Mark Twain. Wrong again!

Charles Dudley Warner was the first to say that famous quip. Warner was a friend of Twain’s. As a matter-of-fact, they co-wrote “The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today.” I had never heard of the book, but after researching, I think I may want to read it. Although it was first published in 1873, it’s description might mirror what is going on in today’s world.

 The Gilded Age is both a biting satire and a revealing portrait of post-Civil War America-an age of corruption when crooked land speculators, ruthless bankers, and dishonest politicians voraciously took advantage of the nation’s peacetime optimism. With his characteristic wit and perception, Mark Twain and his collaborator, Charles Dudley Warner, attack the greed, lust, and naivete of their own time in a work which endures as a valuable social document and one of America’s most important satirical novels.

I love satire, and although I have authored a few articles of satire, it is very difficult to write. But, back to the weather.

The National Weather Service and television stations now have apps, up-to-date alerts, and every other invention to warn us about upcoming weather events. What those media outlets are not timely about are thunderstorms that originate over your head. Stephanie and I look at radar before heading out on a walk. Recently, she looked at radar for our immediate area and saw no signs of rain. She took off on her daily 6-mile walk. Upon reaching the 3-mile mark, she turned around to come back home. It was then that a storm erupted over her head. It was not just rain and some wind, there were little pellets of hail accompanying the storm. I walked out to greet her with a towel. As always, she was smiling.

Predicting the weather is not rocket science, but it is science. Meteorologists should not be held to a perfections standard, but with all the bells and whistles used in this field, accuracy should be close, at least.

We’ll take responsibility for checking radar sites prior to walking on the trail. However, a few days after the pop-up storm, I was looking forward to attending an annual party in rural Iowa. Forecasters were warning us that a major storm was going to brew over the party site, 60 miles from Des Moines. The wind was going to blow hard; the rain was going to be torrential; and “one or two tornadoes” could be a part of the storm.

A day before our intended trip to rural Iowa, we experienced a problem with the windshield wipers. It sounded as if the wiper motor was about to give up its soul and die on us at any minute. With a forecast of Noah’s flood in front of our drive, we decided it was best not to “throw caution to the wind” and remain home. I was disappointed.

I kept looking at weather reports and radar for that part of Iowa. Nothing! No wind; no rain; no hail; no “one or two tornadoes.”

Since the party was a potluck, I was tempted to call DoorDash. Not for that service to get me something from around here, but to drive to the party and bring me back some pulled pork, sides, and desserts. The variety of foods at the annual potluck present the best smorgasbord you’ll ever experience.

We have to wait an entire year before we have the chance to attend one of the only parties we try to attend throughout the year. All because the television stations, the National Weather Bureau, and other outlets of weather prediction efficiency failed to predict a popup storm with any iota of accuracy.

Now, we have to get the windshield wipers’ motor repaired, although I doubt we will be driving in any future storms for a long time to come. Unless, of course, a dark cloud travels above us on our rural Iowa ventures. We’re getting a little too familiar with dark clouds.

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A New Era of Union Leadership

Posted on September 27, 2023 by Marty Ryan

Today’s labor unions are not the violent mobs of the past. Compared to present corporate America, labor unions are docile. There are far more recorded incidents of illegal and unethical practices by American corporations, such as tax evasion, price fixing, bribery, and fraud, then there are of labor unions. But accusations of improper and questionable behavior of labor unions appears to be more of a media focus.

Unions have had to overcome a reputation as corrupt. Past union leaders have been associated with mob bosses and the misuse of union funds. The mention of so many corporations that have raided employee’s retirement funds is evidently overlooked. It wasn’t the few examples of union misuse and abuse of funds that led to the establishment of the Employees Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), an act that establishes standards for private sector pension plans, as much as it was the failure of private companies to maintain its fiduciary duties to keep those plans fully funded.

A 2022 Gallup Poll shows that 84 percent of households in the United States have no union member living within the home. Yet, the same poll finds that 71% of Americans approve of labor unions.

United Auto Workers at three targeted automobile assembly plants of Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis (Chrysler) went on strike at midnight on Friday, September 15. In the past, public reaction to the strike would have been heavily negative toward the union and union workers. However, according to Morning Consult Pro: “By a 2-to-1 margin, U.S. adults surveyed said they would support [the strike] by the UAW if they are unable to reach an agreement with the Big Three.”

Of course, there’s a caveat to those figures. Fewer than fifteen percent of the people surveyed had considerable knowledge of the issue. Still, it’s good news for organized labor. Labor’s rotten reputation since the Haymarket Affair riots of 1886 have been a burden with a small exception throughout the 1950s. In the eyes of some Americans, union leaders are seen as goons and thugs; leaders are referred to as bosses, although the ultimate boss is the collective voice of members.

Why have so many people in the past hated labor unions? A labor union is not much different than the Farm Bureau, your local chamber of commerce, the Iowa Association of Business and Industry, the Iowa Bar Association, and the Iowa Judges Association to name just a few. Each of those associations of people and entities are organized to protect and advance the rights and interests of its members. That’s the definition of a labor union. Sort of. A labor union in Iowa must also protect and advance the rights and interests of employees who are not members of the union.

A labor union, as an association like the aforementioned organizations, works to protect and advance the rights and interests of its members in a particular trade or profession. It accomplishes this goal in a similar manner as so many other entities, through legislation, negotiation, and if necessary, the courts.

Fair Share is the concept of charging non-union workers a fee to compensate the union for costs incurred by the union to represent them. I made a remark about how it was difficult for anyone to not understand the concept. Immediately, a Farm Bureau lobbyist jumped out of her seat and attacked me for my comments. I was left to point out that unions are the only organizations that have to represent people who are not members. On the other hand, if I want benefits offered by other organizations, for instance, the Farm Bureau’s health insurance, I have to become a member of the Farm Bureau. Why is it different with unions?

“Quarterly profits have surged by more than 80 percent over the last two years.” In a recent social media post, President Barak Obama wrote that “when the big three automakers were struggling to stay afloat, my administration and the American people stepped in to support them. So did the auto workers in the UAW who sacrificed pay and benefits to help get the companies back on their feet. Now that our carmakers are enjoying robust profits, it’s time to do right by those same workers so the industry can emerge more united and competitive than ever.”

If you’ll recall, two out of the three auto makers’ CEOs took the money, with no oversight, paid themselves and filed for bankruptcy.

What is it in a memory that allows a person to recall negative aspects of one entity (unions) but not the other (corporate greed)?

I anticipate that with today’s intelligent and ethical labor leaders, tomorrow’s unions will not only grow exponentially beyond the participation of the 1950s, but will gain the respect they deserve.

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This article first appeared in the Fall issue of the Prairie Progressive. The Prairie Progressive is Iowa’s oldest progressive newsletter, founded by Jeff Cox in 1986.
It is funded entirely by subscriptions from our readers. Editor: Dave Leshtz.

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