Sgt. Ryan Nyhus spent 14 months patrolling the deadly streets of Baghdad, where five members of his platoon were shot and one died. As bad as that was, he would rather go back there than take his chances in this brutal job market.
Nyhus re-enlisted last Wednesday, and in so doing joined the growing ranks of those choosing to stay in the U.S. military because of the bleak economy.
"In the Army, you're always guaranteed a steady paycheck and a job," said the 21-year-old Nyhus. "Deploying's something that's going to happen. That's a fact of life in the Army — a fact of life in the infantry."
In 2008, as the stock market cratered and the housing market collapsed, more young members of the Army, Air Force and Navy decided to re-up. While several factors might explain the rise in re-enlistments, including a decline in violence in Iraq, Pentagon officials acknowledge that bad news for the economy is usually good news for the military.
In fact, the Pentagon just completed its strongest recruiting year in four years.
The retention rate of early-career soldiers in the Army has risen steadily over the past four years and now stands 20 percentage points higher than it was in fiscal 2004. As for the Navy and the Air Force, early- and mid-career sailors and airmen re-enlisted at a higher rate in October than during the same period in 2007.
Boyd Huppert / KARE 11 News today wrote:
Economy puts new strain on Toys for Tots
For a Toys for Tots coordinator, there is nothing so empty three weeks before Christmas as a vacant warehouse. First Sergeant Alfonso Via has extra reason for concern this season.
"We're thinking it's just the state of the economy," says Via from the Toys for Tots warehouse in Eagan. "A lot of people have been affected."
Via says early donations to Toys for Tots are "way behind" normal.
When the U.S. Labor Department announced the worst November job losses in 34 years Friday, it only emphasized the challenge the Marine Corps Reserve will be facing this year in gathering enough toys to meet the demand.
_________________ "You wait for a strike, then you knock the sh*t out of it."
- Stan Musial, with his easy to understand definition of OPS
CHICAGO (AP) — Workers who got three days' notice that their factory was shutting its doors have occupied the building and say they won't go home without assurances they'll get severance and vacation pay.
About 250 union workers occupied the Republic Windows and Doors plant in shifts Saturday while union leaders outside criticized a Wall Street bailout they say is leaving laborers behind.
Leah Fried, an organizer with the United Electrical Workers, said the Chicago-based vinyl window manufacturer failed to give 60 days' notice required by law before shutting down.
During the two-day peaceful takeover, workers have been shoveling snow and cleaning the building, Fried said.
"We're doing something we haven't done since the 1930s, so we're trying to make it work," she said, referring to a tactic most famously used in 1936-37 by General Motors factory workers in Flint, Mich., to help unionize the U.S. auto industry.
Fried said the company can't pay its 300 employees because its creditor, Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America, won't let them. Crain's Chicago Business reported that Republic Windows' monthly sales had fallen to $2.9 million from $4 million during the past month. In a memo to the union, obtained by the business journal, Republic CEO Rich Gillman said the company had "no choice but to shut our doors."
Bank of America received $25 billion from the government's financial bailout package. The company said in a statement Saturday that it isn't responsible for Republic's financial obligations to its employees.
_________________ "You wait for a strike, then you knock the sh*t out of it."
- Stan Musial, with his easy to understand definition of OPS
CHICAGO — The occupation of a window-manufacturing plant here by employees who were laid off last week ended Wednesday after a six-day standoff that brought them to national attention amid growing anxiety about the plight of workers in the deteriorating economy.
Bank of America, which had cut off financing for the company, Republic Windows and Doors, said it would lend the company $1.35 million to help it meet the demands of the disgruntled workers. In addition, JPMorgan Chase, which owns 40 percent of the windows company, pledged an additional $400,000.
The money will enable the company to pay 60 days of severance to more than 200 laid-off workers, who had been occupying a warehouse on this city’s North Side, as well as vacation time they had accrued but which the company had previously said it would not pay, union officials representing the workers said.
The resolution came after six days of negotiations among the bank, company owners and union leaders. The workers voted to end their sit-in on Wednesday evening, emerging from their factory chanting, “Yes we did!”
_________________ "You wait for a strike, then you knock the sh*t out of it."
- Stan Musial, with his easy to understand definition of OPS
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