Forecast For Jobs Will Factor Into Vote

Tuesday, June 1, 2004; Page A01

Third in a series of occasional articles.

CANTON, Ohio -- Of all the places devoted to making and shaping metal in this weathered industrial city, few are as venerable as the tidy brick factory on Dueber Avenue. Henry Timken, an entrepreneurial German immigrant, opened the Timken Roller Bearing Axle Co. factory in 1901, and for more than a century, workers in his original plant have cranked out millions of industrial bearings, the steel components that make things such as oil rigs and computer disk drives operate smoothly.

Now the factory is at the heart of an unlikely but intriguing subchapter in the presidential campaign. Timken, which has grown into a Fortune 500 giant, has declared the aging Dueber Avenue plant and two others in Canton to be "uncompetitive." In mid-May, it announced that it would close the factories unless workers represented by the United Steelworkers of America agreed to unspecified concessions.

The announcement landed like an anvil in this section of northeast Ohio, which has been whipped by a long and stubborn manufacturing recession. The potential closings would be not only another nasty economic lashing -- the factories employ 1,300 people -- but a sentimental one as well. Timken's roots are so deep in Canton that the company's local workforce includes the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of former Timken employees.

But the potential political ripples are even more powerful. Timken sits in the heart of a city that sits in the heart of Stark County, one of three critical "swing" counties in a state that President Bush must win to defeat his Democratic rival, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.). Stark went for Bush in the 2000 election, but just barely -- by 2,845 votes, or 1.9 percentage points.

If Timken's announcement translates into broad voter disaffection locally, nurtured by grass-roots union organizers, it would be very bad news for Bush. No Republican has ever made it to the White House without winning Ohio. "They call us the bellwether county in the bellwether state," says Stan Jasionowski, president of United Steelworkers Local 1123, which represents Timken's hourly employees. "Whichever way Stark County goes, Ohio goes."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4808-2004May31.html

Elaine Chao (Secretary Of Labor) is Ms. Mitch McConnell and a rabid shill of Dimbo's mis-administration.

I wonder what the figures really are.

to the usurper.

It isn't the "forecast" for jobs that will affect voters, it will be the actual jobs that people are working at. Laid off workers from Timken are probably not going to be well disposed toward the Republican Job Theft Machine when they're pulling the early shift at McDonald's, even if Timken promises really and truly that the workers will be hired back, oooo, any minute now.

but ACTUAL job growth, which we all know isn't going to happen with trade deals such as CAFTA, passed Friday, being supported by the government.

Almost makes me wish I'd said it myself. :hi: