Another American Dream Turns to Nightmare

N

nystech

Joined
Jul 30, 2004
Messages
5
Howdy folks, this is schrade webguys dad. I have been a lurker here for years but have always held back comment until today.

This closing is truly an outrage that flys in the face of what the American Dream means. Let me tell you a few things about Schrade that you won't get anywhere else.

I was the Environmental, Security, Safety and Health Director at Schrade for nearly 5 years and left in 2002 after the overt attacks of September 2001 and the covert attacks of foreign "competition" reduced this American icon from 700 employees to about 300.

I can't tell you how bad I feel for the Dave Swinden and Wally Gardiner right now. (past Schrade President and current Pres.)

Here is my top 11 reasons why this sucks so bad (drum roll please):

11. They made good stuff!
10. They continued to try to make good stuff even when the big box stores like wallyworld and snears tried to pressure them into making lots of stuff instead of good stuff.
9. They tried to do it by the rules. I had to laugh when I read the one "poster" talking about OSHA... In this company, they actually brought the last OSHA Inspector through the whole factory and pointed out things that they were concerned about, to get the inspectors opinion even when that "opinion" ended up as a fine. Safety was more important then money.
8. Like the ability to read sanskrit, putting a good edge on a knife is a dying art. There was a concentration of 3rd generation cutlers at Schrade that (in my opinion) constitues an irreplaceable national asset.
7. They cared about thier workers. When most companies began using CYA tactics and eliminating all but the required first aid, Schrade kept an RN on staff. Thier "First Aid" dispensary was more like a free clinic where employees could get help with any medical problem or question even for family members and non-work related issues.
6. Quality actually mattered. Though not a " lean mean efficient machine" they tried not to slip junk on to you and, if you got a bad knife, they would replace it and guarantee the new one for life. Where else you gonna find that today?
5. They didn't tout thier social commitments to sell knives. Thier commitment to nature and the environment was real. They alway looked for green processes and chemicals and provided meaningful support to important organizations like Ducks Unlimited.
4.This was the most philanthropic company that you never heard of. At times, the commuity had better access to their budget than department heads did. When 9/11 happened the workers dug in and sent an 18 wheeler full of supplies to NY and, The president stood with his family on the road in front of the factory stopping motorists and shaking them down for money to help support the families of our servicemen when fighting broke out in Iraq. They had one whole section where developmentaly disabled adults worked together, with pride making a great American product IN AMERICA! They held Bi-Annual blood drives.... the list is too long to cover here.
3. This company was the fulfillment of the American Dream for so many immigrants! Where else could folks from Poland, Russia, China, Mexico, Central America... step off the boat (not speaking any english) and make 40K per year in a safe, fair environment provided that they weren't afraid to work for it?
2. No racial or sex bias there. Did you know that more than 60% of Schrades workforce were women?
1. My kid works there.

On second thought, I don't feel bad for Wally and Dave they tried, and they know the peace that comes with trying your best. I think I really feel bad for an America where this story is repeated every day.

Thanks for listening and hang on to those 100th year anniversary knives. They may be the last piece of real Americana you will ever get your hands on.

Thanks,
Steve Enright
 
What a disappointment to all.

nystech, I must say that was the best first post, and on a difficult subject, I've ever seen here. Well put.

Bill
 
Well said! Sad to see a good company go. Any chance that someone else will pick up the pieces?
 
Steve, your Dad seems like quite a guy. Sorry it took this crap to get him to finally post here.

As GRMike wrote in another thread, this does seem like a death in the family.
For what it's worth, Schrade Products, made as good as they were, valued by some of us collectors, will be around for a long, long time.

I hope this forum stays alive. The anger, hurt and frustration will fade somewhat, sometime, and we all do have interesting opinions, experiences, and information to share.

Phil
 
You guys did make a quality product for a very fair price. My first 'real' knife was an Old Timer Stockman, and I still have it today, ten years later.
 
Hey dad where were you all those years I was yelling your words well where ever you were I certainly agree with your sentiments made even more poignant because you were there. This is the article that appeared in the Middletown Record ( a local paper ) today. Now you know why the largest industry in this part of the state are its correctional facilitys 11 within an hours drive. Yup in upstate NY CRIME is our bread and butter. When I look at a rapist or murderer I see a new pair of shoes for the kids. Not much of a feeling of accomplishment ( like crafting a piece of steel into a beautiful useful tool but doggone) ( human nature being what it is it is steady ). So get them applications 260 new recruits available to spend 25 years of there life in jail voluntarily because even 100 year old industrys can't make it here. Yes sir this is Hillary country ( she hasent even remarked on the closing ) to busy campaigning. OH HELL here is the article

Subject: In todays paper


> July 30, 2004
>
> Schrade shuts, 260 lose jobs
> Suddenly unemployed workers feel panic
>
> By Jeremiah Horrigan
> and Mike Dawson
> Times Herald-Record
> jhorrigan@th-record.com
> mdawson@th-record.com
>
> Ellenville - By 9:15 a.m., it was all over. A hundred years of history, at
> least 260 jobs.
> They came streaming out the front door of Imperial Schrade Corp. Some were
> sobbing. Others embraced. Some walked in circles with their hands on their ears
> as if they'd been stunned. They were talking into cell phones, spreading the
> bad news.
> They all clutched what amounted to their walking papers, a one-page letter
> from Schrade President Walter A. Gardiner that began "We regret to advise you
> . ."
> With those words, at least 260 people, many of whom had worked at the knife
> manufacturing plant for 10, 20 and even 30 years, were shown the door yesterday
> by a once-proud, family-friendly company whose name was almost synonymous with
> Ellenville.
> None of the suddenly jobless workers said they were surprised. After all,
> the company laid off more than 100 workers without so much as a warning just
> before Christmas last year.
> But lately, there had been signs of a recovery. About 40 people who had been
> laid off in December were rehired in April. As recently as a few days ago, new
> hires were coming in the door.
> But it all came to nothing. Gardiner's letter said it all:
> "Your last day of employment will commence on July 30, 2004."
> Gardiner blamed unspecified "difficulties" with the company's suppliers and
> financial institutions, as well as sluggish sales in the wake of Sept. 11. A
> company spokeswoman refused to answer specific questions following the
> announcement, including exactly how many workers were fired.
> Whatever reasons the company gave, the workers blamed their bosses for the
> hurt they felt and the panic that was already spreading.
> The kids. The rent. Back-to-school clothes. Health coverage.
> Standing in the front doorway of Schrade yesterday morning was like being
> the first visitor at a wake.
>
> THE LIGHTS were being shut off in one of the plant's many machine shops by
> 9:30 a.m. A few time cards remained in slots along the wall next to the time
> clock.
> In the main hall leading to the employee exit, workers carried boxes and
> yellow ShopRite bags stuffed with personal items: family pictures, posters,
> sweaters and sweatshirts.
> Along the wall hung the United Way fund-raising barometer. Plant employees
> were $500 shy of their goal of $5,000.
> Outside at a shaded picnic bench, as the newly jobless workers walked to
> their cars and trucks, two women sat smoking and crying.
> "It will be OK, Agnie," said Teresa Kalinowska, 42.
> Both Kalinowska and Agnieszka Nadrowska, 36, are immigrants from Poland.
> Both had worked at Schrade's shipping department since their arrival in
> America: Nadrowska for six years, Kalinowska for five.
> Both have children. Neither one knows what they're going to do.
> "I'm always honest with my children," said Nadrowska, a widow who came from
> Staszow, Poland, with her two kids, a daughter, now 15, and a 16-year-old
> son. "I guess I'll tell them today I have no job."
> After four years of scrimping and saving and establishing credit, Nadrowska
> finally bought a fixer-upper house in Ellenville. In the last two years, she's
> replaced the plumbing, the furnace and the roof, and painted the walls.
> "The yard is small, but my kids play [in] it," she said as she took a heavy
> pull off her cigarette.
> She started to cry again.
> "My daughter, her birthday is in August," she said. "Happy birthday, yes?"
> Supervisor Frank Ficsor found himself in tears when he said goodbye to the
> men and women in his department.
> Ficsor is 48 years old. He went to work for Schrade on his 18th birthday.
> "It's like a death in the family," he said yesterday.
> He, like every other worker, will receive no buyout, no severance pay. His
> health insurance coverage ends today.
> He has two kids in college.
>
> VILLAGE MANAGER Elliot Auerbach thought more cooperation between Schrade and
> the village could have helped.
> "I'm angry. So many people have been totally blindsided. There's no excuse
> for it," he said yesterday.
> Auerbach said he'd met with Gardiner and other officials after the December
> layoffs. He told them they'd shown a lack of compassion and sensitivity.
> "Obviously, they didn't listen."
> Cheap foreign labor, especially in China, has long been blamed for the
> company's problems. But it's not that simple, according to a state expert.
> The closing may have a big impact locally, but it's part of a long-standing
> national trend, according to Nallan Suresh, professor of management science at
> the State University of Buffalo.
> Fixed Chinese exchange rates that make materials cheaper there are at the
> root of Schrade's problem, according to Suresh.
> "Material costs are as much as 75 percent lower in China, so it's not just
> cheap labor," he said.
> Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-Saugerties, also blamed Chinese competition on
> Schrade's closing.
> Hinchey said he was shocked by the closing, especially since he believed the
> company was on the verge of getting a "very significant" military contract.
> Since 1990, according to the state Labor Department, more than 6,300
> manufacturing jobs have disappeared in the Upper Delaware and Hudson Valley
> region, which includes Orange, Ulster and Sullivan counties in New York and
> Pike County in Pennsylvania.
> Ulster has lost 1,100 jobs; Pike and Orange have lost 5,200; and Sullivan,
> while losing a few hundred jobs from 2000 to 2001, has remained relatively
> steady since 1990, according to Johnnie Nelson, a labor market analyst with the
> department.
> Michael Cruz sat on a picnic bench outside the front door and looked into
> the distance. He's 60 years old, two years from retirement.
> "Everything's changed," he said. "What are you going to do?"


I LOVE NY LT


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After 35 years, they ended up as part of that large sucking sound predicted by R. Perot when NAFTA passed.
Click to expand...

With all due respect, nystech, Mr. Perot didn't say it would take 12 years before we heard that "giant sucking sound" that he predicted in 1992. What we had instead was 8 years of unprecidented economic boom, Schrade and Philips included. The losses, something like 3 million jobs so far, have come on Mr. Bush's watch. Read the article LT posted. Schrade's not the only local manufacturer to lose jobs. In my neck of the woods it's not knife manufacturers but furniture manufacturers. There was an article in the Grand Rapids Press yesterday about the closing of a fine old furniture manufacturer, Baker, in the nearby town of Holland. Hand-crafted stuff, very nice, couldn't find a market for it.

I don't think NAFTA is the problem. There was another article in our paper just a couple of weeks ago about new markets for West Michigan fruit opened up as a result of NAFTA. Funny isn't it? Some parts of free enterprise seem to thrive on free markets. I agree with the sentiment that "the inteligence, ingenuity, integrity, pride and passion of the American worker are things that no-one can ever copy," but I would suggest that the same applies to the French worker, the German worker, the Swedish worker, the Polish worker, the Italian worker, the Spanish worker, etc., etc., etc. God has not tapped our workers on the shoulder, much as we would like to think so. I own some very fine things--for example a M95 Mauser--that were not conceived of nor built by Americans, and I make no apologies for that, and as a matter of fact I would suggest to you that Americans were not capable of making a piece of equipment that good when it was built by Carl Gustavs Gevarsfaktori in 1918. It does no good to pretend otherwise.

So chill, nystech, and LT, and all the rest of you who think the problem is NAFTA or Asia or Mexico or stupid American consumers. It's a much more complicated world than that, but if you want a simple answer to what's wrong, you might look at the idiot in the White House. You think he's a man's man, but he's f***ed our economy over Big Time (which happens to be his nickname for the VP). He told us the way to restore the economy was to give tax breaks to the gazillionaires, so they'd make jobs. WELL? SEEN LOTS OF NEW JOBS LATELY? I'm sorry. This is getting too political. But I'm tired of the bitching and moaning and blame-Clinton-firsting. Republicans have had their say, in the Congress and the Supreme Court and the White House, for 4 years. Happy with how things are? I didn't think so.
 
Great! Just Great! The laments for a great knifemaking firm's demise have turned into a venue for idiots spewing their political crap.

If anyone wondered why I gave up moderating the General Forum after James Mattes died, this prostitution and the department of redundancy department posts by the lame and lazy might serve to instruct.

--Bob

Never to be forgotten: James Mattis, Walt "Doc" Welch, Rob Simonich
 
Great! Just Great! The laments for a great knifemaking firm's demise have turned into a venue for idiots spewing their political crap.
Click to expand...

They started that way, pal.
 
I will kill the post since is belongs in a political forum, not here...
Just hard to avoid playing the blame game as I witness the disintegration of manufacturing in the northeast US. :rolleyes:
 
Nystech, you have my respect for your honesty and you have my sympathy for what's happened, for what that's worth. I sincerely hope you and yours land on your feet. Steve, LT, you know what I've said to both of you before.

Lyndon Johnson (remember him?) used to say, "Come, let us reason together." Boy, that's hard to do these days. Bald1, I'm not sure what you're driving at, but you know what? I didn't politicize this thread. Nystech has the good grace to recognize it was politicized from the first. I got hot under the collar and made that explicit, and I apologize if I offended anybody here by doing so, but dang it, that's the truth.
 
Excuse me, but the manufacturing jobs started leaving big time in the mid-1970's. That's when the steel mills in eastern Ohio, western PA and Detroit started closing. When the "Boss" sang in 1984, "Those jobs are gone, boys, ain't ever comin' back," he was lamenting the impact of the "international economy." If you think a change in something as economically insignificant as the head of one branch of the government in one country is going to stop the trend, go to the ocean and yell at the incoming tide -- you'll have the same impact. Mexico, for God's sake, lost 500,000 jobs to Asia in 2003 -- labor costs too high in Mexico!
 
The first knife my dad gave me was a 77ot two blade muskrat, 1975, 76?

A truly sad day for traditonal american cutlery!
 
Sorry to boost this but I just read the post by nystech. It has always troubled me greatly to see the death of such an American tradition. I don't know if it's too many beers or the rising of the tides but that post brought tears to my eyes.

Wow, somethings never quit hurting do they?
 
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