Editorial was badly timed
Re: “Time they are a changin’,” March 9, 2016
Dear Editor,
The problem I have with articles like this, regardless of the format, is people who have all the so called righteous information have jobs already with paycheques and benefits and live somewhere else.
Oshawa, for years, has been on this pilgrimage to become like a lot of college and university communities without the smell of industry, and getting it out of our backyard. It just seems the timing is rather suspect because you seem to forget not everyone can get through college or university and these type of jobs are necessary for those people totally dependent on working to provide, as well as creating at least six to seven other jobs in many service businesses as a result.
Oshawa can be proud of its new diversities in the education and the applied economy from the courthouse and health- and knowledge-based entities, but again what do you do with the people who cannot work in these areas where an education is a prerequisite to a paycheque and benefits?
Somehow, this article looks like a clean check around the net of life and living, but really it is an unfair back check with the intent to hurt where no one wins and people will be eventually permanently unemployed. I think you owe an apology to all the workers and all those from any area of retail and commerce who will feel the effects of GM closing.
In a way, you have provided GM with an exit visa by showing your liberal bravado of “look at us.”
Hence the timing of this article affects the process attempting to go to completion without reminding us what we already know. It is the workers who will be affected by not having a job and the infrastructures, who are also people who lose their paycheques and benefits before writing an ill-timed article until everything is negotiated out later this year.
So yes, the times they are a changin’ as your title states, but they do not have to change in a tasteless way until GM decides to stay or go. Like a pilot who overshoots the runway, the timing of this article’s landing is right in the drink, drowning a lot of workers’ hopes and aspirations for the future and the subsequent building of cars GM workers are proud of at least yesterday and today achieved and now what about tomorrow?
Paul MacArthur