Act II: The Jobs of the Past NARRATOR: THIS HYPERCOMPETITIVE NEW WORLD IS A FAR CRY FROM THE EARLY
’60S, WHEN ONE COMPANY, GENERAL DYNAMICS, THE CITY’S LARGEST, PROVIDED STEADY JOBS FOR ALMOST FIFTY THOUSAND PEOPLE. BY 1996, SAN DIEGO’S ELECTRONICS MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY EMPLOYED JUST TWENTY THOUSAND, COMPUTER
COMPANIES FIFTEEN THOUSAND, SOFTWARE LESS THAN EIGHT THOUSAND. THE BIOTECH INDUSTRY, TOUTED AS A CORNERSTONE OF SAN DIEGO’S FUTURE, HAS PRODUCED ONLY TWO DRUGS APPROVED BY THE FDA. MOST BIOTECH COMPANIES ARE LIVING ON
BORROWED MONEY. DONALD COHEN: I think in the last ten years, what’s happened in the economy here is that the middle has fallen out. So now what you have is much more of an
hour-glass, where you have larger numbers growing - growing very fast - of low-wage service jobs and a growing but very small - slowly growing - high-end of biotech - of replacement industries. NARRATOR: IN FACT, THE LOCAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE REPORTS THAT, SINCE THE MID-’80S, SAN DIEGO’S MIDDLE CLASS, THOSE MAKING BETWEEN FIFTEEN AND FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS A YEAR, HAS SHRUNK BY TWELVE PERCENT.
MEDIAN INCOME HAS BEEN STAGNANT. AND THAT PATTERN IS PRETTY TYPICAL OF AMERICA. RIFKIN: We have two countries now in this country, two Americas. The top twenty percent of the
workforce are knowledge workers. They have the skills for the new Information Age economy. And they’re doing very well. The bottom eighty percent of the workforce is the industrial workforce, from middle management to
factory workers. They’re slowly, slowly seeing their position erode in terms of jobs and economic security. The idea that we’re into a new age of prosperity leaves them rolling their eyes in many instances.
NARRATOR: THAT COMMENT LEFT ME WONDERING HOW THE MIDDLE CLASS WAS COPING WITH THE CITY OF THE FUTURE. I FOUND ONE ANSWER IN THE STORY OF THE HOGUE FAMILY. I MET THE HOGUES AT THEIR SUMMER
REUNION PICNIC. Chip: “Yeah, we’ve got enough food out here. It’s just that…” NARRATOR: CHIP HOGUE AND HIS WIFE MARTHA...AND CHIP’S FATHER, SONNY... Chip: “…want to try a rib?” NARRATOR: THE HOGUES
EMBODY WORKING AMERICA. THEY RODE THE COMPETITIVE SUCCESS OF AMERICAN INDUSTRY INTO A SHARE OF THE AMERICAN DREAM, AND THEY EARNED THEIR PIECE OF THE DREAM.woman: “Jellybeans are down there.” NARRATOR: THEY WORKED
HARD AND HELD STEADY JOBS. THEY GOT RAISES AND THEY BOUGHT HOMES. THEY SETTLED DOWN, LOOKED FORWARD TO A COMFORTABLE RETIREMENT AND ASSUMED THEIR CHILDREN WOULD DO BETTER. BUT, LIKES TENS OF MILLIONS OF OTHER MIDDLE
CLASS AMERICANS, THE HOGUES SAW THEIR WORLD CRUMBLE. IN THE LAST FEW YEARS, CHIP HAS BOUNCED FROM JOB TO JOB BEFORE LANDING A REGULAR POSITION AT CHEM-TRONICS, A SMALL AEROSPACE CONCERN. AT A TIME IN LIFE WHEN HE
SHOULD BE REAPING THE REWARDS OF SKILL AND EXPERIENCE, HIS PAY AND BENEFITS ARE IN A DOWNWARD SPIRAL. Chip: “I’m not going to be caught up, like, with that stove you bought?”
Martha: “Mhmm.” NARRATOR: FOR THE FIRST TIME IN DECADES, CHIP AND MARTHA FACE INSECURITY AND MUST SHRINK THEIR LIFESTYLE. Chip: “I’m
gonna have to transfer some money because I don’t have enough in the checking account.” SMITH: What’s the future hold? How do you feel about your future? CHIP HOGUE: I’m lucky to get through this year right now. I didn’t even make a year at the last company, so I don’t - I don’t have a future right now. I just gotta think about making ends meet, making the
payments month to month right now. NARRATOR: THIS ISN’T HOW THE HOGUES EXPECTED THINGS TO WORK OUT. I FIRST LEARNED THEIR STORY IN THIS BOOK, A HISTORY OF A SAN DIEGO COMPANY
CALLED CONVAIR. I CAME ACROSS A PICTURE OF THREE GENERATIONS OF HOGUES - ALL OF WHOM WORKED AT CONVAIR - THEIR FACES SHINING WITH PRIDE AND CONFIDENCE.BUT IN ONE COLUMN, I NOTICED A JARRING COMMENT FROM CHIP HOGUE:
“I THOUGHT I WAS SUPPOSED TO RETIRE FROM THIS COMPANY. MY GRANDFATHER DID. MY DAD IS GETTING READY TO,” IT SAID. “I THOUGHT IT WAS MY LEGACY TO RETIRE FROM HERE, LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE. NOW IT’S GONE. NOW I HAVE TO START
ALL OVER AGAIN SOMEWHERE ELSE.” THE HARD TRANSITION THAT TURNED CHIP HOGUE’S CONFIDENT SMILE INTO ANGRY WORDS OF BETRAYAL GAVE ME AN INSIGHT INTO THE PRECARIOUS FUTURE OF SAN DIEGO’S SHRINKING MIDDLE CLASS. CONVAIR,
FORMERLY CONSOLIDATED, HAD ONCE BEEN THE ENGINE OF SAN DIEGO’S ECONOMY -- THE HEART OF A BOOMING AIRCRAFT INDUSTRY, A CORPORATE GIANT AND A FOUNDATION STONE FOR AMERICA’S INDUSTRIAL MIDDLE CLASS. voice in historical footage: “Convair’s San Diego division is a city within a city with a population the size of Boise, Idaho, or Middletown, Connecticut.” NARRATOR:
DURING THE DEPRESSION, IT WAS THE PROMISE OF GOOD JOBS AT CONVAIR THAT ATTRACTED A SKILLED YOUNG MACHINIST FROM RHODE ISLAND NAMED ROLAND HOGUE TO THE COMPANY’S GATES.CONVAIR AND THE HOGUES GREW AND PROSPERED
TOGETHER. IN 1954, GENERAL DYNAMICS BOUGHT CONVAIR, AND ROLAND’S SON, SONNY, JOINED THE COMPANY. AND WHEN SONNY’S BOY CHIP WAS OLD ENOUGH, HE TOO CAME ABOARD. BY 1961, GD-CONVAIR EMPLOYED FIFTEEN PERCENT OF THE
POPULATION IN SAN DIEGO. CHIP HOGUE: It was the Rock of Gibraltar. It was the biggest private employer in San Diego. And, once I got in, then, all of a sudden, all my friends
said, “Hey, get me in, get me in, get me in.” And - uh - after I’d been there awhile, I realized why they wanted to work there. It was a great place to work. SMITH: And a great
place to work because what? Because the kind of work it was? Because of the pay? Because of benefits -- what? CHIP HOGUE: Yes, the kind of work, the benefits, the pay. I made
more money there than I could ever realize. SMITH (to Sonny Hogue): Your dad worked forty years at General Dynamics. You worked forty-two years. Chip worked seventeen years.
That’s ninety-nine years for your whole family. SONNY HOGUE: Yeah, that’s a bit. You could count on it. You - you always - was always something to do. They were always developing
something, always making something new. They always had work for you to do. NARRATOR: BUT GENERAL DYNAMICS AND ITS WAY OF LIFE CAME CRASHING DOWN IN THE EARLY NINETIES. ITS
DEMISE CAME AT THE HANDS OF A HERO: FORMER APOLLO ASTRONAUT AND NATIVE SAN DIEGAN WILLIAM ANDERS.ANDERS BECAME CEO IN 1991 AND, DESPITE GOOD PROFITS THAT YEAR, BEGAN TO LAY OFF THOUSANDS OF WORKERS. ELIZABETH DOUGLASS: I think where people really get sick to their stomach is where he was laying off thousands of employees. At the time, he was making millions of dollars. NARRATOR: ANDERS HAD WORKED A DEAL SO THAT HE WOULD REAP A HUGE BONUS AS GD’S STOCK ROSE. AND, CATERING TO WALL STREET BY SELLING OFF DIVISIONS AND LAYING OFF WORKERS, ANDERS KEPT PUSHING THE STOCK HIGHER AND
HIGHER.SMITH: How did Anders himself do? DOUGLASS: He made more than thirty million dollars in two and -- two and a half or three and a half years -- not counting his stock,
which is al- probably about the same amount.protesters chanting, “No bogus bonus for Bill.” SMITH: You mean people think that there was a way that at least divisions of
General Dynamics could have been saved, or it could have been a softer landing? DOUGLASS: Most of the products that were built here in San Diego are still being built. It means
that they were not bad products. It was not that there was no demand for them. The Atlas Rocket is still a vital piece of business. And General Dynamics’ electronics division is here still - uh - employing people under
a different name. So it wasn’t that the underlying products were unwanted or unable to make themselves felt in the market.MICHAEL ROAKE: No one ever told the city of San Diego about the end game: “By the way, we’re
leaving, OK? We’re gonna leave - and - uh - too bad, so sad, end of story. Every day you’d read about more hemorrhaging of jobs and people in San Diego but always with a little tease that - uh - it was going to stop
soon, that they were just “rightsizing.” It was a lie. They were leaving. NARRATOR: THE LAYOFFS AT GD WERE ESPECIALLY PAINFUL FOR MARTHA HOGUE, WHO WORKED IN HUMAN RESOURCES AND
HAD TO PARTICIPATE IN THE FIRINGS.SMITH: What was the hardest part for you? MARTHA HOGUE: Knowing the employees - um - as long as you do, you feel a closeness with them and
knowing it’s their livelihood, as it was all ours. SMITH: Did you have to do it for your own family?
MARTHA HOGUE: Yes, I laid off my own husband.CHIP HOGUE: The scene I remember most is the last couple months. CHIP HOGUE: The very last ship-set that came through - when it would get done at one section, they would
- move it to the next section. This was the very last one. Next day, you’d come in. That fixture’d be gone. All the people working in it would be gone. And you could watch it coming down the building like this, getting
closer and closer to you, to - to me and me getting laid off and the place closing. NARRATOR: AS GENERAL DYNAMICS BLED TO DEATH, ONE INCIDENT CRYSTALLIZED THE ANGER PEOPLE FELT
TOWARD THE COMPANY AND TOWARD ANDERS PERSONALLY. woman’s voice on dispatch: “...a grievance for being discharged. He did go inside with a gun.” NARRATOR: IN 1992, A DISMISSED WORKER ENTERED GD’S HEAD OFFICES IN SAN DIEGO WITH A GUN AND OPENED FIRE, KILLING ONE MANAGEMENT OFFICIAL AND CRITICALLY WOUNDING ANOTHER.THE ASSAILANT WAS ROBERT MACK -- A
TWENTY-FIVE-YEAR EMPLOYEE. HIS LAWYER, MICHAEL ROAKE, MOUNTED A NOVEL DEFENSE, BLAMING MACK’S RAMPAGE ON THE COMPANY’S CALLOUS TREATMENT OF MACK AND HIS CO-WORKERS. SMITH: In effect, you put the company on trial
ROAKE: It was necessary because we had to remind the world that something caused this and, if nothing else, to - uh - to echo the fact that the company’s behavior brought this
to a crisis point. NARRATOR: REMARKABLY, ROAKE’S TACTIC WORKED. SO OUTRAGED HAD PEOPLE BECOME TOWARD GENERAL DYNAMICS, THAT A JURY WAS UNABLE TO CONVICT ROBERT MACK OF MURDER.
judge: “Hearing no objection, the court will now declare a mistrial.” SMITH: So Mack’s plight resonated with a larger public feeling?
ROAKE: I think so. I think that - uh - people - uh - were shocked at the indifference that was evident as Convair was leaving San Diego - indifference not only to its workers
but its managers - uh - and - and certainly indifference to the people of San Diego. NARRATOR: THE DEATH OF GENERAL DYNAMICS LEFT THE HOGUES AND THOUSANDS OF OTHERS ADRIFT, THEIR
WORLD OF WORK AND THEIR PERSONAL DREAMS DEMOLISHED.SMITH: When you look at the world around you, the world you remember as a nineteen-year-old and the world you are looking at today, what’s the difference?
CHIP HOGUE: Doesn’t exist anymore. I’m not - I was going to be there. I was going to buy a house, have a wife, kids and grow up and then retire and go off into, you know, happy land, but
not anymore. Now, I’m - uh - I’m not starting over, but I’m nowhere near making the money I was making before. So we - we were living well before. Now we’re getting by. NARRATOR:
CHIP’S MOTHER HAS OTHER CONCERNS.SMITH: In this new economy, who do you worry about? PALLIE HOGUE: I worry about the young people. When we were first married, we could survive
on his paycheck alone. I didn’t have to work if I didn’t want to. But then, when our children grew up, the husband and wife both had to work to support a family. Well, when my ch- grandchildren grow up, how many people
are going to have to work in that family to support a family? NARRATOR: AND, WHILE MARTHA HOGUE HAS LANDED A PERSONNEL POSITION AT REMEDY STAFFING, A TEMP AGENCY, HER JOB IS NOW
TO GET OTHER PEOPLE TEMPORARY WORK. Martha: “Thanks for calling Remedy Technical. This is Martha. How may I help you? Would you like to bring in your resume?” NARRATOR: THE BITTER IRONY FOR MARTHA IS THAT HER HARROWING EXPERIENCE OF LAYING OFF FELLOW WORKERS AT GENERAL DYNAMICS HAS NOW BECOME HER PERMANENT NIGHTMARE. MARTHA
HOGUE: You don’t know what the future holds anymore. As far as looking at stability with any employer, I would never trust in that. [Back to top] |
