Revenue lost in Toledo, coulda, shoulda, woulda...

"At any rate, gambling is not some sort of magic economic salvation."

You are right, but could it bring tourism, hotels and motels, entertainment and so on to a city that has little for now with the decline of the auto industry and related industries or do we sit and spin in the same cycle which is looking downward more and more?

http://toledoohioneighborhoodconcerns.com/blog

Do you know the history of Convergys, especially here in Toledo, or what? Convergys enjoyed a lot of tax-break bennies then ran out of here ON SCHEDULE. They knew the schedule when the call center was enacted -- that they'd be leaving well before our so-called civic leaders expected (which they didn't at all). As you might also recall, Ben Konop filed a lawsuit on part of that issue. (The suit failed, since according to Konop, the judge said the State of Ohio had to pursue such charges. Obviously, Ohio has no stomach for enforcing law (criminal or contract) against a notable Ohio corporation. The same reluctance applies to Toledo politicians.)

Convergys is currently screwing over Cincinnati in a similar fashion. Its employees in Toledo just hated the company for its ineptitude and unfairness in the local operation. Does that make it a bad employer? No, it makes it a Criminal Cincinnati Corporation, as I said before. They are just riding the outsourcing wave, and under Taft's so-called administration they obviously felt no motivation to be an actual corporate citizen, and instead act like a money shark. I don't know about you, but I think money sharks are about as welcome in Toledo as an actual shark would be in a local lake. Who really wants a voracious, unsatisfiable, and gore-spattering monster to deal with every time you want to take a swim?

And to make my point as clear as ever: I have no opposition to slot machines at a racetrack. The point is that any racetrack, hotel, retail store, etc. has the right to have slot machines, not just 11 specific businesses across Ohio who obviously paid off the right people in Columbus. Rights are for everyone, not just a cartel. Since the previous proposal did NOT make gambling legal in Ohio, I voted NO on it. It's not the business of the public to (1) stop people from enacting their natural rights (throwin' dice, gulpin' liquor, tossin' cards, smokin' weed, and all the rest of the so-called vices are NATURAL RIGHTS), and (2) it's also not the business of the public and government to create artificial cartels. 11 or so businessmen in Ohio had ZERO right to monopolize gambling profits. If there's any profit to be had from gambling, then by natural rights it belongs to any who can afford to setup a gambling operation.

PERIOD.

Someone other than I said it best:
"They prey on desperate towns full of desperate people."

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In World War 2 we fought (and defeated) the Axis. Today we're afraid of cellphones, smokers, and cheeseburgers. It's about at the end, people.

n_c said: "I worked for [Convergys] for 8 weeks. They were no more inept than any other company that I worked for."

You need to get out more. Your sentiment is only true when you compare Convergys to another scumbag corporation. Comparing scum to scum is not a sensible metric.

I can forgive you for a limited view on corporate behavior seeing how some really scummy businesses operate in Toledo. Myself, coming from the military and cutting my teeth on technical work in Boston after that, I've literally never met such scum allegedly operating long-term businesses as I have here in Toledo. To illustrate the point, the BBB has noted that when they held a seminar on business ethics, so-called businessmen were literally screaming at them (i.e. shouting them down) during the seminar. Toledo is not a place that welcomes the concept of business ethics. I think it's at least true, since Toledo is so depressingly poor that the average small businessman is always this ( --> || ) close to going bankrupt. In tune with this, I've also never seen a population so economically scared in my life ... and I GREW UP here in Toledo, fer crissakes!

n_c said: "Of course they based the call center on a .com company and that company went bust."

You should think a bit more thoroughly on what you said. They had a CALL CENTER -- which is not location-dependent. Convergys has had all kinds of clients, and they have profited from the outsourcing boom as established companies of many kinds tried to get rid of their liabilities (i.e. employees -- and so much for loyalty, eh?). Convergys runs other call centers just fine.

The point is, Convergys always planned on shutting down the Toledo call center. They just didn't tell the state and city that little tidbit when they were gleefully accepting their tax abatements and training grants.

n_c said: "Your comments are great but lack ideas how to bring new corporate citizens, jobs and so on to the area."

I do have ideas, but since they rely on market forces and individual liberty -- you know, the things that America is supposedly based on -- they are summarily rejected by the Socialist Toledoan. Want to attract businesses to the city? DROP THE GENERAL TAX RATES. Why is that such a demonic idea for people to accept?

No, instead, people say they have those alternate "ideas" that invariably involve taxing the people who work and then giving the proceeds (after a sufficient and hefty slice for the $100K-salaried administrators who arranged it all) to the wealthy. These ideas also involve the concept of treating businesses unfairly -- through tax abatements and such. If you zero the tax liability from one business, you've effectively committed a crime against all the other businesses in the area.

Combined with dropping administrative overhead to be attractive, it only stands to reason that you have to also downsize your government. Unfortunately, government (esp. in Toledo) is a rather hostile parasite and it will do (and has done) anything to keep itself rolling in OUR money.

We do NOT need "economic development" plans. ED is a scam conducted by government in order to keep their high-paying, muchly-benefited jobs. ED is also a scam supported by corporations so that they can prey on public fear in order to get more of their costs socialized. Instead of the ED Scam, we need to retract intrusive and truly excessive government and taxation and let Smith's invisible hand do its time-honored work.

n_c said: "I lived in Massachusetts myself the other side of the state and you know nothing about me or my life's journey."

Oho! You were Westa Woosta! Of course, to a Bostonian, anything west of Worcester only underwent a 3000-mile compression until it became the West Coast. Sad.

n_c said: "How's this for scum, as you label it, a business operates for many years and sends the profits to another plant under their control and the plant making the profit is suffering. Management goes to the work force and says 25% pay cut or close the doors. What would you do?"

You should have walked en masse. That's what you do when you deal with scum. Unfortunately, too many employees these days are either underpaid, or overspend, with the end result that solidarity is only achieved by stomach-quaking fear and obedience to authority. You did not walk en masse since you were united in fear over your jobs. It's a modern story and only tells the doom of worker power and rights in America.

It took about 3 days sitting in a seat at Convergys to realize that the company was fucked up beyond my prior belief. They reset my expectations on a modern corporation. I admit to the failure. We should have risen up and walked, stalling the company out of $30/hr/seat and forcing them to operate as if they cared, or at least eat the costs of restaffing. Too bad for us Convergys picked the correct, spineless metro area to operate in. I was surrounded by people in similarly bad economic condition. Convergys knew all that and milked it to the limit. Scum scum scum.

n_c said: "I drove the 128 loop too and I am aware of the businesses in and around the area."

For myself: Acton, Littleton, Waltham. There were some great-paying jobs there in the 1990s.

n_c said: "And you know/knew [Convergys always planned on shutting down the Toledo call center] how?"

Firstly, from the way the company operated, it was obvious there was an ulterior motive of some sort. Secondly, towards the end, my contacts inside the company's Toledo call center confirmed that Convergys had always intended on shutting Toledo down. True, they had also drawn up plans to expand the Toledo operation, such as the ones for opening up a Tier 2 center in downtown. But, those "plans" could have also served as sauce for the goose -- as more bullshit for the local politicians to consume so they could get all those cuddly feelings up to the point of suddenly finding out Convergys was shutting down.

n_c said: "No offense but you are not writing things that I do not already know or believe in and your teaching is not teaching me much."

No offense here either, since I'm not actually here to speak to you. I'm only using you as a sounding board for the lurkers. Disbelieve away.

Hey Lew, the link is crapulent. Please advise.

n_c said: "Sounding board? The sounds are loud but not much else."

You're missing the point. It's not up for you to even judge. As long as the sounds they reach other ears, then other minds can judge. Nowww, it's time to put your bruised ego aside, dear. {pat pat}

n_c said: "As you state the decline of the worker is well noted and yet knowing this you would advocate walking out."

Yes, because you can't assert worker rights without assertion. That's the thing that seems the most inane about modern unions. They just don't strike. They have obviously surrendered their main power in the owner-worker relationship, and as a consequence, they really have ZERO power anymore. Rights not used are generally just lost.

After decades of being too afraid to walk out of workplaces in solidarity marches, the owning class now owns us more than ever. It's not going to get any better just by wishing it was so. It also doesn't get any better by negotiating with owners who have no desire to negotiate. There are a great many labor conflicts that SHOULD have happened in the past generation, yet did not out of worker fear and cowardice. Those conflicts haven't dissipated or have been cancelled; they have only delayed the day of conflict, thereby ensuring conflict resolution will come at an ever greater social cost.

n_c said: "And you would have walked out, been fired, been unable to collect unemployment and then what?"

Well, I was pitched out the door of Convergys, with no money, no unemployment, and I lost my home. So, I learned. I now walk the talk, walk and talk in sync, and know what I'm talking about in the first place.

And this is exactly how the rest of the working class should restructure their lives to prepare for the current and coming battles in the outright CLASS WAR that's going on. If just threatening you with unemployment makes you submit, you will have to either accept a life of wage and debt slavery, OR you'll have to live an economically simpler life which can withstand long periods of unemployment. Choose.

n_c said: "Promises and commitments can be made in business and are but without a written commitment the words are useless."

Then you're only permitting the destruction of all social contracts. Employers and employees should feel loyalty and devotion to each other.

You'd better start measuring your gasoline, friend. The socially-contractless world you envision is a living hell and you'll be taken advantage of at every turn.

have worked in a union work enviornment-but I have. Several. And since I worked at The Great God Convergys as well, I know every word he speaks HERE:

"It took about 3 days sitting in a seat at Convergys to realize that the company was fucked up beyond my prior belief. They reset my expectations on a modern corporation. I admit to the failure. We should have risen up and walked, stalling the company out of $30/hr/seat and forcing them to operate as if they cared, or at least eat the costs of restaffing. Too bad for us Convergys picked the correct, spineless metro area to operate in. I was surrounded by people in similarly bad economic condition. Convergys knew all that and milked it to the limit."

IS 100% TRUTH. I've worked white-collar, blue-collar, been a supervisor, been a union steward, and I'm telling you flat out that Convergys was the most crooked, non-caring, phony, most corrupt place I EVER worked in my life. They're the PERFECT example of 'the new workplace'-or the 'modern' workplace, if you prefer-NOTHING WORKS AND NOBODY CARES.

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In World War 2 we fought (and defeated) the Axis. Today we're afraid of cellphones, smokers, and cheeseburgers. It's about at the end, people.

n_c: "President Reagan fired the striking air traffic controllers"

That happened in 1981. Have you checked your calendar lately? In terms of what I'm saying, that's ancient history. A full Human generation has passed since then. Unions just don't strike anymore. When they do strike, they tend to do it symbolically, like the last time the Detroit teachers struck. (Ooh! A summer strike! That really struck fear into the hearts of the administrators, I'm sure!)

In Europe, unions are known to strike yearly just to show that they CAN. Imagine if we had such courage here amongst American labor. But, no, no, those prospective American strikers would have to take the risk of missing one of their blizzard of payments, so no dice. They stay at the job and the owners know full well they'll never strike to hurt (or even inconvenience) them. The end result is that worker rights are evaporating across the US. DUH!

n_c: "And what is the obsession with Convergys they are gone and rehashing what was, is getting us where?"

Now you're being just dense. The point in identifying crooks and criminals is to not be taken in by their schemes again. Giving Convergys any consideration whatsoever was a mistake on the part of the city and state. We complain about it since the city and state refuse to admit that mistake. Therefore -- follow along, now -- they are probably willing to make the same mistake again. THAT is why we complain. And THAT is why we will continue to complain. We have to stop another Criminal Corporation from collecting bennies from Toledo.

n_c: "there were no contracts between the workers and the company"

The contract between the city and the state and Convergys did exist and it wasn't enforced. You've been told this many times.

n_c: "They have a business model based on call centers and like any business they found ways to do the same work that was alleged to be more cost effective and they ran the business the way they wanted and if meant closing up the branch in Toledo, well then they did."

Fair enough, yet they didn't reveal to the city and state that they fully intended on leaving Toledo before they even installed a center here. THAT was the fundamental dishonesty that honks us off.

n_c: "You seem to be implying that unionized of collective bargaining is some panacea"

No, I'm not implying it; I'm stating it directly. People should be all allowed to form voluntary associations that act in the collective. That present unionized organizations are largely dysfunctional does NOT demonize the union org in the first place. The people demonizing union orgs are YOU, with your one eye on the world and the other eye on your international stock portfolios.

n_c: "Stand together and then what? Strike and get replaced and then what? People still loose their homes and look for work after the company leaves and you would comment that they did not stick together and it was there fault that they failed to stick together?"

I hardly need to explain to any adult the wisdom on taking the hard medication now over later. The Convergys folks lost their jobs anyway. They (and we) should have stuck together. Without solidarity, unions have ZERO power and will continue to have zero power regardless of the conditions of the company. Since we're also tolerating a sickening amount of financial secrecy in our society, there are also decreasing chances of even understanding the conditions of companies to even decide the fairness of labor demands.

n_c: "I heard the class wars comments in the 70',80's,90's and so on, it is nothing new. Times have changed."

That doesn't make sense. If it's nothing new, then what changed? At any rate, the blue collar class well knows what happened in America starting in the 1970s, and it's only the domination of the white collars in the mainstream media that hid the extent of that rising class war. Now the white collars are being decimated and decimated-plus, and slowly they are coming to realize that the class war that they ignored is hitting them.

n_c: "It is all too easy to sit at a keyboard and [blah blah blah]"

Waah fucking waah.

n_c: "When workers are faced today with a take or leave it attitude by employers and the NLRB sides with the employer as the take or leave it was made in the context of labor negiotiations and also having the mandated plant closure laid on the table, you advocate walking out in solidarity and risk lossing people pensions with over 30 years invested in for them."

They're losing those pensions, anyway. We're losing democracy itself to corporations, anyway. Live temporarily on your knees or take a chance of dying on your feet. Myself, I prefer the chances offered by conflict. If your cowardice comforts you ... that's not really the point, now, is it? This is not about comfort.

And stop spending like 14-yr-old girls with their first taste of credit-card bling. I've lost count of the union workers who well knew their unions were dying yet shouldered even more massive debts than before. They can't claim they didn't know a future of artificial scarcity was coming. What should have rationally happened, for example, when you got your holiday bonus from Ford in 1999? You should have saved it. No, no, thousands of Ford workers went out and blew that bonus on cheap Chinese shit, more mortgages and more flightly services like texting cellphones.

n_c: "The wisdom you put forth is pretty shakey without knowing all the facts."

I'm in command of sufficient facts, which you're unable to debate. You may as well advocate the Housing Bubble position that demonized saving money.

n_c: "Again you have no idea what I am envisioning and so on and your words are ringing more and more hollow each time you write."

Get used to that ringing sound 'cuz I've got a lot more where that came from, Sparky.

n_c: "And it has been commented with the spineless workers in the area, why did you show some spine and organize, instead of faulting those around you when your job was lost and all the other you allege?"

I had already said that that was my mistake. I learned. I'm now unemployed again, specifically from having fought with my prior employer for my rights. The rest of the local employees were either scared or uncaring, so they continue to endure. I walk the walk, sister. I also admitted my mistake before. Let it go. You have no issue here.

n_c: "Workers strike get replaced and loose every thing, so what is the impetus to strike when labor can be replaced."

Because you're still not slaves. Furthermore, if you'd stop shouldering even more enormous debts, you could survive such expressions of labor spine. American labor did the exact opposite since 1981. They essentially stopped striking, tolerated having the Congress change the law (thus markedly weakening recourse for unions), and then started such terrible spending that even the mainstream media (basically, a corporate propaganda system) can't hide our deep debt problems.

The American worker gave up. We'll now never know what outsourcing and offshoring would have been REALLY like if the American worker had taken the necessary and ultimate risks during their formation.

I know that I am not giving up anymore. In sync with that, I bother to live simply and to save money. There's little point in being brave if you're a 98LB weakling. Eat some beef, push some weights, and then see what you can achieve when you stand up for yourself.

n_c: "Okay so what is it about then? A return to Communes? A return to collectivism? A return to One Party Rule?"

I was wondering how long it would take you to drag out the C-word. I've been called a pinko, Commie or Socialist more times than you've had hot meals.

No, Hypercapitalism is not countered by Communism. We had a perfectly functional Regulated Capitalism. We should return to having an educated (not indoctrinated, as we have now) public participating in a Populist government, and not tolerate the current trend of Corporate Government (which is fully one-half of what's required for Fascism).

You status-quo-ers are a hoot. You actually pretend that it's impossible to have a particular social organization ... that we ALREADY HAD in the 50s and 60s. We already had a sound Republic for the American worker. Thus, it is entirely possible to return to it. We just have to exert educated will in the body politic.

Finally, we already endure one-party rule. We're ruled by the Corporate War Party. Essentially all Dems and Repubs belong to this party. If you've so much trouble one-party rule, then what happens when you're in that ballot box? Do you just click (D) or (R) and shrug your shoulders? You do know there are often independent alternatives for major political offices, right? Have you ever voted for them, or have you adopted the "wasted vote" myth? Bark! Bark!

n_c: "What do you suggest us to do? Rise up and follow you with nothing more than rhetoric? What is the plan to solve the problems you write about."

{claps hands with almost girly joy} I'M SOOOOO GLAD YOU ASKED!

1. Stop spending money like a 14-yr-old girl with her first access to daddy's credit card. In line with this, save money, and also recognize that debt is not wealth (in short, "saving" doesn't mean paying 50%+ more for a home than it's worth and also for what you really need).

2. Stop spending so much time at work. Get to know your kids again. Also get to know those neighbors.

3. Buy a shotgun and some shells, take that TV out to a field, and shoot the bajeezus out of it. The TV does nothing but enslave you and your children by a nonstop indoctrination into the ways and means of the modern American Empire. It feeds you filthy lies constantly. DESTROY IT BEFORE IT DESTROYS YOU.

4. Save money. Stop relying on your tax refund, too. I'm sure the government enjoys the interest-free loan you gave them, but that's just stupidity on your part.

5. Get involved politically. You don't have to be a Ralph Nader (who has often called himself a "professional citizen"); just pick a small topic that interests you and chase it relentlessly.

6. Discuss politics, rights and issues with co-workers, your mate, your children -- anyone who stops moving long enough for you to open your mouth successfully.

7. FINALLY ... realize that the government is not our parent and it has no right acting as such. Government should be minimal -- in other words, socially liberal and fiscally conservative. A government that is small and focused cannot stop you from putting your dick or tongue where you want after your marriage ceremony; such a government instead focuses on stuff like testing local river water just in case some sonuvabitch factory-owner upriver decides he wants to save money and dump those toxins. Power and liberty are naturally reposited in the people of these United States, and their natural desires are for liberty and safety (which are ever contradictory). Step #7 is not really an action; it's an understanding. Understanding produces a philosophy that produces will-to-power. (Yeh, and a backbone would really help.)

n_c: "Maybe you have some plan about bringing new jobs and companies that honor the rights of the workers and will work cooperatively with its workers and when you find them let the rest of us know because there are a lot of people looking for them too."

I can't force them to come back, neither can you, and neither can any politician you vote into office. Stop expecting "plans" to work. We can only make ourselves generally more attractive with low taxes (FOR EVERYONE, not just corporations) and focused, minimal government. If the businesses come back, then great. If they don't, then the tax load will be low enough that you can eke out your living. There simply isn't a sensible alternative. What certainly DOESN'T work is taxing the populace (at least, that fraction of the populace that isn't lavished with tax abatements) and then giving the proceeds to corporations.