The Stories Project: Oregon Livelihoods Traded Away

Fred Lamb Residence: Vancouver, OR Age: 62 Occupation: retired machinist, Freightliner Parts Plant Affiliations: Machinists IAM Lodge 1005, Alliance of Retired Americans

Snapshots "Machinists have taken a hit all over the country. Good jobs gone away and they're not coming back. I'm thinking of Maytag -- went to Mexico. That's a classic example because you've got people who are now down in Mexico building refrigerators or whatever it is but they can't afford to buy them. And if those people at Maytag that would have built those refrigerators -- if they don't have jobs now or something equivalent to what they were making, who's going to buy them?" "What's really happening is the middle class is getting wiped out and what's really sad is that in this day and age, our kids --my kids, your kids -- are not going to do as well as you're doing. The jobs aren't going to be there. And that's too bad because ever since our parents who went through the Great Depression and saw some real hard times always wanted to make it better for their kids. That's happened for several generations. Now that's turning around and going back the other way. " "They keep saying there's more jobs and the economy is on the bright side. It's looking up we're gaining here and we're gaining there. But the problem is that the jobs we're getting are low paying jobs. The service industry isn't going to pay anywhere near what manufacturing did. " "Blumenauer is on the fence. We've talked to him. Peter Defazio is absolutely fabulous. It's always a pleasure to walk into his office. Darelene Hooley is another one that's been on the fence. She's been with us sometimes and sometimes not. Like I said earlier we're not afraid of free trade. We just think it ought to be fair trade. And it's not, nor has it been. We've tried to tell our politicians that this is the problem as we see it. But they continue to disappoint us." "Ron Wyden, the first time he ran for office, is was the machinists who backed him originally. And he'll tell you that. We got behind him and he prevailed. And now he's at where he is today because of that. But he's turned his back on us. It's been our decision that we won't give him a dime. He doesn't need it. He's got a war chest. But if we could find someone to run against him we'd run 'em. "

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