The Associated Press story out of Leavenworth was one most of us would just as soon hadn’t been necessary:
“Fort Leavenworth officials say they will cut 125 civilian jobs by October 2012 because of federal budget cuts.
“Officials said Monday the fort needs to reduce its workforce to 441 positions. Fort spokeswoman Rebecca Steed says only civilian employees under installation management will be effected.
“Garrison Commander Col. Wayne Green stressed that the fort plans to reduce positions, not people. He says he hopes to place every person currently working at the fort into another job before October 2012. The fort will offer voluntary early retirement or buyout incentives.
“Steed said the fort plans to offer vacated positions to current employees who might be affected by the reduction.
“The fort says it is trying to avoid cutting employment at the Fort Leavenworth prison.”
Doesn’t any of that seem familiar to anyone who was gainfully employed in Kansas back in the 1980s?
Sure it does.
Companies all over the state were forced to cut back because of changes in everything from the number of discount stores located in a community; to the massive changes to the oil field across the state; and on to the crisis in the savings and loan industry and in agriculture.
It was a time when people across the state, in a wide variety of fields, were just happy if positions could be lost through attrition instead of firings; a time when you didn’t complain that you kept inheriting more duties, more stress and less pay increases, because at least you had a job.
Some of us were Pollyannaish enough to believe that conditions would return to what older employees had enjoyed in the ‘60s and ‘70s, but soon the hand-writing was on the wall. We weren’t going back. You soon needed at least two incomes and generally three or even four to support a family.
No one was wringing their hands.
No one went out on strike.
You just went to work if you were lucky enough to still have a job.
It hasn’t been pretty, but it’s been real, and the working class has borne the brunt of it.
Like it or not, the same is true at the public sector now.
It’s too bad that jobs will be lost in Fort Leavenworth.
Just like it’s been too bad for the rest of the economy over the past generation.
— Chuck Smith