BMW layoffs exemplify the evisceration

Every working American should be dismayed by — and afraid of — what BMW is doing. 

July 03, 2011|Michael Hiltzik

By all accounts, BMW's parts distribution warehouse in Ontario was one of the jewels of the company's system.

Supplying dealer service departments throughout Southern California, Arizona and Nevada, it received gold medals from BMW for its efficiency and employed several of the top-ranked workers in the country. In the roughly 40 years its workers had been represented by the Teamsters union, there had never been a labor stoppage.

Times being what they are, when a Teamsters committee came to the plant in early June to open negotiations over a new contract to start Sept. 1, they thought they might be asked to accept minuscule wage increases and maybe some givebacks on health coverage.

They were stunned by what they heard instead: As of Aug. 31, the plant would be outsourced to an unidentified third-party logistics company and all but three of its 71 employees laid off.

The union contract will be terminated. Some of the employees might be offered jobs with the new operator, but there are no guarantees. And no one expects the new bosses will match the existing $25 hourly scale or the health benefits provided now.

The average seniority of employees at Ontario is about 20 years; five have spent 30 years or more at Ontario or its predecessor warehouse in Carson. Of the employees to be laid off (according to a notice BMW sent the union), 27 are age 50 or older. The word that came most often to the lips of workers and their families I've talked to is "devastated."

"The hardest thing I ever had to do in my life was to look my family in the eyes and tell them that after 32 years I'm out of a job," says Tim Kitchen, who at 53 is the longest-serving employee at the warehouse. The esprit de corps that once prevailed in the warehouse is gone, he says. "You walk in there now, it's like a morgue." Early retirement isn't an option; Kitchen still has two kids' college educations to pay for.

Every working American should be dismayed by — and afraid of — what BMW is doing.

These employees exemplified the best qualities of the American worker. They devoted their working lives to BMW, at a time when it was building and solidifying its U.S. beachhead. Their wages, with benefits, paid for a reasonable middle-class lifestyle if they managed it carefully. Throw in the job security they were encouraged to expect, and they had the confidence to make sacrifices and investments that contributed to the economy for the long term, like college education for the kids, an addition on the house, a new baby. Then one day they were handed a mass pink slip, effective in a matter of weeks.

The harvest will be weighed in foreclosed homes, college educations deferred or abandoned, new cars left in the dealers' lots (BMWs not excepted) and consumer goods on the shelf, one more little cascade of blows to the U.S. economy.

Miguel Carpinteyro, 42, had 14 years with BMW and every expectation of retiring there. In the backyard of their home in the San Bernardino County community of Highland, he and his wife, Jerri, just finished building a pool, which is good therapy for their two autistic sons. A daughter has a heart condition requiring frequent medical visits.

Despite abysmal reviews, Congress has extended its fiddling while Rome burns run, encouraged by the sound of one hand clapping.  In the interest of justice, may the jobs they decimate be their own.