The Winona Daily News looks at top stories in its area for 2006. Here's the write-up for politics:
Walz unseats Gutknecht
Tim Walz, the fiery-yet-affable teacher from Mankato, became the poster child of the Democrats’ sweep of both the U.S. House and Senate in the November midterm elections when he ousted six-term incumbent Congressman Gil Gutknecht, R-Rochester, in a close race that most pollsters and pundits ignored until September.
Within the state Legislature, DFLers widened their majority in the Senate and re-captured a majority in the House. The House takeover was marked by a number of tight DFL victories over long-time Republicans, including La Crescent Rep.-elect Ken Tschumper’s 52-vote win over Rep. Greg Davids, an eight-term Republican from Preston.
Of the five state legislators who will represent Winona and the surrounding area in 2007-08, four are Democrats. Prior to the November elections, three of the five were Republicans.
Minnesota Central: Best and worst list
McPherson Hall, whose Minnesota Central blog had been quiet for a while, reflects on the political year.
Mankato Free Press: Tim Penny's radio show
Our fiscally moderate friend at Minnesota Central is a big fan of former representative Tim Penny. The Mankato Free Press reports on Penny's radio show, broadcast from Waseca's KOWZ.
After a long stint in politics, Tim Penny has discovered you don’t have to be in elective office to examine the issues and make a difference.
In Waseca, the 55-year-old former congressman is asking the questions he thinks people want answered as host of the weekly radio show It’s Your Call on KOWZ-AM 1170.
A few minutes before 11 a.m. on a recent Friday morning with coffee cup in hand, Penny climbs the steps to the cramped radio studio of KOWZ in the back of the Nelson Realty building in downtown Waseca.
“I try to ask the questions I’ve heard people asking around town,” Penny said. He invites a variety of local people to answer those questions on the air.
Since his first show in September, past and present government officials, the heads of organizations, high school students and other local notables have shared the microphone.
During a recent program, Penny shook hands with his radio guest, jotted a few notes on the back of his mail and adjusted the microphone, waiting for his cue from Bob White, the station’s sports director.
Chuck Noble, a CPA, gave listeners end-of-the-year income tax tips, prompted by a few questions from Penny. Mayor Roy Srp filled in the rest of the hour. Penny describes his radio slot as “somewhat political but low key.” While he tries not to throw softballs, Penny also notes he doesn’t set his guests up for a “gotcha” interview.
“I like the interviewing techniques Gary Eichten on (Minnesota) Public Radio uses,” Penny said. . . .
The show is being considered for a statewide audience.
Worthington Daily Globe: Swift & Co coverage
A fascinating pair of articles in today's Worthington Daily Globe. One chronicles the contributions Swift & Co. makes to the Worthington area; the other looks at the effects on Worthington of a long-term decline in real wages in the meat packing industry. Reporter Julie Buntjer wrote the pieces.
In Being a good neighbor?, Buntjer notes:
Throughout the course of the past two weeks — since Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials conducted a sweep of Worthington’s Swift & Co. plant in search of identity thieves and illegal immigrants — comments regarding Swift’s impact on the community have been easy to come by. Yet the topic often overlooked in those conversations on the street or in letters to the editor are positives that Swift has brought to the region.
[snip]
More than just the name has changed at the Worthington facility in those 42 years, and that’s clear simply by driving past the plant on the northeast corner of town. Remodeling and expansion projects over the years — the latest completed in 2004 — have taken the company to new heights in Worthington. Today, Swift has 2,300 employees and an annual payroll of $64 million with two full production shifts and a third shift to conduct maintenance, clean-up and rendering.
Thanks to advancements in technology and expanded space, Swift today can process 1,100 hogs per hour — nearly four times per hour than when the plant first opened. Efficiencies in processing have opened the doors to the region’s pork producers to grow the steady supply of animals needed to keep the plant in operation.
“All of our hogs are purchased from within a 200-mile radius of the plant,” said Andersen-Martinez, adding that the company’s most recent data shows $661 million being paid per year to those pork producers. “That $661 million is 4.4 million hogs (processed) per year.”
The plant needs more than just pigs to remain in business, and that brings in an entire realm of economic benefits.
From Jan. 1, 2005 through Nov. 2006, Swift & Co. contributed nearly 30 percent of the share of the retail electric revenues taken in by Worthington Public Utilities. During that same time period, the company’s water fees made up close to 40 percent of the total water revenues taken in by the utility, according to WPU director Scott Hain.
[snip]
With a $64 million payroll, $661 million paid to local pork producers, $5.3 million paid in utilities, $6.3 million in state and federal withholding and $1.2 million in property and vehicle taxes, Andersen-Martinez said those dollars multiply throughout the region. According to RIMS (Regional Input-Output Modeling System) multipliers, Worthington’s Swift & Co. can be attributed to the creation of 14,000 additional jobs — above and beyond those within the plant — and another $251 million per year in economic earnings in the region.
Its employees buy homes here, rent apartments here, buy groceries and supplies in local stores and support community causes. According to Sean McHugh, spokesperson for Swift & Co.’s headquarters in Greeley, Colo., the Worthington plant provided more than $47,000 in cash and in-kind support for organizations including the local food shelves, Hospice Cottage and the Worthington Area United Way — as well as a special $52,000 contribution to support families of the ICE investigation. In addition, employees contributed $12,200 for the American Cancer Society’s Nobles County Relay for Life in 2006; and $52,200 for the Worthington Area United Way during the 2005 campaign.
Another side of the story in the companion article, Low wages change face of processing industry:
Some have said that when Swift Independent purchased the former Armour’s plant in Worthington, so began the town’s demise. Wage reductions and increased expectations forced people to leave the processing facility behind — to be replaced by workers willing to do the job for whatever pay they could get.
Back in 1983, one local man left his job on the line after 19 years with what he believes was a relatively good company in Armour’s. The union was strong — it had gone on strike several times seeking improvements in working conditions and increased wages — and everyone seemed to get along, whether they were line workers or office personnel.
Armour’s paid some of the best wages in town back then, and benefits were good, too.
“We had a waiting list when we worked there of people wanting to come work,” said the man, who spoke to the Daily Globe on condition of anonymity.
Teachers would sign up to work for Armour’s during their summer vacation, and the unemployed would show up each day in hopes someone called in sick or couldn’t make it into work, he said. But when Armour’s closed and Swift Independent came in two months later, the pay being offered was considerably less. It forced many, including him, to begin a new job search.
When he lost his job in 1983 due to the closing of Armour’s, he was making $11.75 per hour on a line that processed 550 hogs per hour. He can’t recall what Swift Independent was willing to pay, but remembers it was nowhere near the living wage he’d been earning.
Now, some 23 years and three changes in ownership later, the starting wage at the pork processing plant is $11.50 per hour — roughly 30 percent less when considering inflation — and it is processing 1,100 hogs per hour.
According to James Mintert, an agricultural economist at Kansas State University, meatpacking wages once ran 14 to 18 percent above the average manufacturing wage. Today, the wages are 25 percent below the average manufacturing hourly rate.
So who, or what, is responsible for the bubble bursting in the food processing business?
Those who have worked in the industry blame it on non-unionized companies.
[snip]
In 1980, about 46 percent of meatpackers were unionized. Today, about 21 percent are, including Worthington’s Swift & Co.
In Worthington, the inability to find enough people willing to work at the new, lower wages offered by Swift Independent forced the company to find new tactics to bring in employees. In the years that followed, a slow yet steady stream of immigrants — both legal and illegal — came to town to fill the jobs.
Some may argue that they took jobs away from local residents, but what many don’t consider is the declining number of people who want to work in a processing facility. As the former Armour’s employee pointed out, the work isn’t glamorous. Employees stand, often in one place, for up to eight or 10 hours a day on a concrete floor. In addition, their work is repetitious and typically involves yielding dangerous equipment such as knives or saws.
Today, immigrants make up 50 percent of the workforce, according to data from the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. . . .
Washington invitations
Tim and Gwen Walz invite those who can make it to Washington D.C. on January 4 to a couple of receptions. It's our first duty day for the semester, alas, so we are staying put in Minnesota, but we anticipate Representative Walz's cheerful communication staff will supply details on all the fun.
Rochester Post Bulletin: Interview with Gutknecht
The Post-Bulletin's Ed Felker interviews the Republican leader in Gutknecht reflects on 12 years in the House. In this interview, he attributes his "demise" to the Iraq situation:
Do you still support the president's approach to the war?
A: I'm not sure I know what the president's approach is. One of the real problems this administration had is they are just miserable communicators. If they had expressed from the beginning a clear vision, the American people would have stood behind that vision for a very long time. But the vision has been somewhat misunderstood, that's the term I would use. ...
The White House indirectly sowed the seeds, I might say, of my demise, by things that they did early on that didn't prove to be correct. Not that they're evil, or whatever, but they didn't think about the consequences down the road if that wasn't correct. ...
I would put under a bigger umbrella, the whole notion, the whole theory, and I have to blame (Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice for this, the whole theory was that they would be so pleased to be out from under the yoke of Saddam Hussein that they would put aside their secular differences and unite behind the banner of secular democracy. Well, the Iraqi people do want democracy, but they first want justice. The Sunnis and Shias have scores that they want to settle, and I don't think we thought through what those scores were and how violent that could become.
It's easy for me to be critical today because I didn't see that and didn't understand that. ... I did not understand how deeply rooted the secular differences were in Iraq, and it would continue to fester and in some respects flare up 31/2 years later. No one could have predicted that, I shouldn't say that, no one was predicting that four years ago, but we certainly understand that today.
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