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ND-Dem

(4,571 posts)
Fri Feb 6, 2015, 09:48 PM Feb 2015

Detroit man who walks 21 miles/d to his $10.50/hr job surprised with new car



STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich. -- Everyman's hard-workin', hard-walkin' commuting hero finally got a car.

Detroiter James Robertson, whose daily marathons of walking to a suburban factory job made him an overnight media celebrity, registered total surprise as he walked into the Suburban Ford dealership in Sterling Heights, expecting just to "get some brochures," said Blake Pollock, the UBS banker who befriended Robertson last year while passing him on the road and began giving him lifts in bad weather.

This week, Pollack has shepherded Robertson through a media frenzy. Instead of brochures, Robertson had a sea of reporters waiting -- and a bright red new car.

And what car did he choose? Forget the glitz that car buffs ogle each year at Detroit's auto show. Robertson, true to his modest roots and humble nature, will drive the model that he repeatedly said he admired, in terms that surely delighted legions of marketers in Dearborn: a Ford Taurus, because "it's simple on the outside and strong on the inside – like me."

James Robertson, 56, of Detroit outside his workplace in Rochester Hills. In his commute to and from work, Robertson has taken two buses each way and walked 21 miles every day for 12 years. He has been named ABC’s “Person of the Week.” (Photo: Ryan Garza/Detroit Free Press)...

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/02/06/detroit-walking-man-new-car/22989743/


On the one hand, this story made me cry. On the other hand, I'm with Bill Moyers:

No One Should Have to Walk 21 Miles to Get to Work

Public response to Robertson’s admirable yet heartbreaking story was overwhelming. In just three days, a Go Fund Me account established to buy him a car collected more than $275,000 from nearly 10,500 donors.

Unfortunately, this gesture will do nothing to help the other 60,000 Detroit households — 80 percent of whom are black — without access to automobiles. These families have few options in a metro area where just 22 percent of jobs can be reached by public transportation in 90 minutes or less...

One thing is clear: A system that requires a dedicated employee to walk 21 miles a day to make $10.55 an hour is a failed system. As Robertson reminded the Free Press, “Even if my situation changes, you never forget there are so many other people that are in my situation.”

“I said this before — no one can say that I didn’t pay my dues in life. No one.”

http://billmoyers.com/2015/02/05/public-transportation/




9 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Detroit man who walks 21 miles/d to his $10.50/hr job surprised with new car (Original Post) ND-Dem Feb 2015 OP
kick Liberal_in_LA Feb 2015 #1
thanks. ND-Dem Feb 2015 #2
$10.50 an hour? Doesn't he work in an auto parts factory? KamaAina Feb 2015 #3
It's a company that makes molds for various plastic products, including cell phones. I'm ND-Dem Feb 2015 #4
The name is already out there KamaAina Feb 2015 #6
I know. I just didn't want to be the one spreading it around. ND-Dem Feb 2015 #8
Why James Robertson Might Want to Consider Not Taking the Money ND-Dem Feb 2015 #5
"No one should have to walk 21miles to get to work." Brigid Feb 2015 #7
+100 ND-Dem Feb 2015 #9
 

KamaAina

(78,249 posts)
3. $10.50 an hour? Doesn't he work in an auto parts factory?
Fri Feb 6, 2015, 10:12 PM
Feb 2015
has happened to wages in the few manufacturing jobs we have left?!
 

ND-Dem

(4,571 posts)
4. It's a company that makes molds for various plastic products, including cell phones. I'm
Fri Feb 6, 2015, 10:59 PM
Feb 2015

not going to put the name because I don't want anything out there that could impact his job.

One does wonder, since he's been working there 12 years and is apparently an exemplary employee, why the pay is so lousy.

Although minimum wage in Detroit is only $8.15/hour, scheduled to increase to a whopping $9.25 IN 2018....

So maybe $10.50 is now considered a good wage for factory work. Yeah, things have gone downhill.


but the guy seems a genuinely good guy:

"I'd have to think about it," Robertson said, grinning. Then his mien turned serious: "If I can teach one person, or do something to help Detroit, that would make me the happiest man in the world."

http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/oakland/2015/02/03/robertson-meets-fundraiser/22785185/

Robertson's arduous regimen of bus rides and foot-slogging to keep his suburban factory job after his aging Honda quit, his employer moved north nine miles from Madison Heights to Rochester Hills, and bus service was repeatedly cut back in metro Detroit, forcing him to walk longer and longer distances each day.

Rochester Hills is one of scores of suburban communities whose residents declined to approve property-tax millage for SMART buses, so no fixed-route large buses run there, SMART officials said.


Rochester hills median income: $81K
Detroit: $26K

Rochester hills % black 5.6%
Detroit: 83%
 

ND-Dem

(4,571 posts)
5. Why James Robertson Might Want to Consider Not Taking the Money
Fri Feb 6, 2015, 11:46 PM
Feb 2015

If you haven’t heard, there is a Black man in Detroit who walks 21 miles to-and-from work because he needs the money. As reported by the Detroit Free Press, 56- year-old James Robertson works at a factory, which is located 23 miles away from his home. There is a bus line but it only covers half of his trip. The other half he must travel by way of dusty Timberland boots. He travels 46 miles, Monday through Friday, for a job that pays him a little over 10 bucks an hour.

According to the story, Robertson has been making this 21-mile journey ever since his 1988 Honda Accord broke down over a decade ago. For whatever reason, Bill Laitner of the Detroit paper sees something dignified in this. And highlights it in the most flowery of prose:

“Every trip is an ordeal of mental and physical toughness for this soft-spoken man with a perfect attendance record at work. And every day is a tribute to how much he cares about his job, his boss and his coworkers. Robertson’s daunting walks and bus rides, in all kinds of weather, also reflect the challenges some metro Detroiters face in getting to work in a region of limited bus service, and where car ownership is priced beyond the reach of many. But you won’t hear Robertson complain — nor his boss.”

Um, perhaps Robertson should complain a bit more?

And I’m being serious here when I say that perhaps Robertson needs to engage in a little Black Lives Matter-protesting on the job? You know, raise a stink about that long-overdue raise? Or at the very least, maybe he should be putting those resumes out for a new gig, that requires less travel time?
Take it from a person who had to learn the hard way: if you want something in life you better speak up and say something. As Zora Neale Hurston once said, “if you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”

Or you can stay ridiculously humble to the point of being self-sacrificial and wait for a nice reporter to come around and do an equally nice human interest story about you, which eventually inspires enough donations to buy you a new car. Whatever works...

What I mean is that folks can get real paternalistic over poor people. And some charity can come along with inflated expectations of the kind of impact this supposed act of kindness will have on an individual’s life. We identify the alleged hurdles in an individual’s life and then become inspired by them. And we decide to help these people fix or overcome that hurdle. Usually, this help comes with expectations that they will miraculously turn their lives around. However, when they fail to meet our expectations, we are disappointed in them, turn our backs on them and in some instances, want the return of our charity from them.

I see lots of this being played out in Robertson’s story. His savior is a banker, who first brought Robertson’s story to the Detroit Free Press and is overseeing a “board of advisors,” who will not only monitor the funds, but “set much of Robertson’s windfall aside for future expenses, including auto insurance, gasoline, maintenance, and some of the cash likely will help him with medical and dental care.” In other words, Robertson is a project.

In a sense, charity becomes an exercise in meritocracy as opposed to a matter of addressing someone’s alleged immediate need(s). And it also tends to ignore what is the larger concern here, which is income inequality. The crime here is that Robertson has to travel 46 miles round trip from home to a township, in which he probably can’t even afford to live, just to work a job that only pays him $10 an hour. The secondary crime here is that in 2015, public transportation in some parts of America is virtually non-existent. The secondary and primary crimes here often work in cahoots at keeping poor people, poor. And in lots of instances, it is by design. But instead of thinking about why there are jobs targeted to grown men and women in places that they can’t afford to live, which pay less than livable wages (and trying to fix that), we blame the people for not crawling low enough...

http://madamenoire.com/508828/james-robertson-might-want-consider-not-taking-money/

Brigid

(17,621 posts)
7. "No one should have to walk 21miles to get to work."
Sat Feb 7, 2015, 02:29 AM
Feb 2015

That says it all. Robertson's story points to a systemic problem. He's not exactly alone. To paraphrase an old saying, feed the poor but don't forget to ask why they have no food to begin with.

 

ND-Dem

(4,571 posts)
9. +100
Sat Feb 7, 2015, 02:39 AM
Feb 2015
The crime here is that Robertson has to travel 46 miles round trip from home to a township, in which he probably can’t even afford to live, just to work a job that only pays him $10 an hour. The secondary crime here is that in 2015, public transportation in some parts of America is virtually non-existent.

The secondary and primary crimes here often work in cahoots at keeping poor people, poor. And in lots of instances, it is by design. But instead of thinking about why there are jobs targeted to grown men and women in places that they can’t afford to live, which pay less than livable wages (and trying to fix that), we blame the people for not crawling low enough...

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