I don’t mean to make a deep philosophical point here. It’s a sociological one I’m after.

There are two clusters of workers standing by my train station every morning. One group is clad in red tee shirts and carrying union banners reading, “All Verizon Jobs are Union Jobs,” and the like. They are striking members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA).

The other cluster is comprised of day laborers, mostly undocumented workers from Central America seeking work from area contractors and landscapers. They’re eyes scan up and down the road for tell-tale pick-up trucks.  In their hands they hold  thermoses and lunch boxes.

The groups stand 25 yards from each other.

It is impossible not to think what the day laborers are thinking about the union strikers. Any one of them would give his eye-teeth for the chance to take one of those worker’s jobs — at half the salary.

It is impossible for the strikers not to know that, and fear that knowledge. It is why they are in a union after all.

All in all, it’s a depressing scenario.  

I have ambivalent feelings when I see unions protest. Part of me is angry at their inflexibility. They feign outrage while enjoying pensions that will allow them to retire 10 or 15 years before the rest of us can, and they have far better benefits. (One of things CWA is protesting is Verizon’s request that union  workers start paying $100 towards their health care each month. Most of us pay ten times that or more).

But when I see the faces of the protesters, my views naturally soften as I see parents like me trying to do the best they can for their children, and to hold onto what they have. Besides, based on personal experience with the company, I am the farthest thing from a Verizon cheerleader.

But what I most think about when watching a protest is the word “correction.” America, is going through a massive correction in its labor costs and everyone of us is feeling it; some more than others.

It can only get worse before our wage and benefit levels finds its market bottom. The cost of labor around the world is just so much cheaper than it is here. Billions of people are willing to work for less than what we, as Americans, have grown unaccustomed to.  It is a story playing out at my train station every morning.

Grandpa Joe Leaps from His Butt Upon Hearing the Good News

Something has always bothered me in the story Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It’s Grandpa Joe –the guy who lays around in bed all day every day until Charlie nails the Golden Ticket. Then ol’ Joe is up and dancing circles around his bed –the one he’s rotted in for 20 years –gaily celebrating his expected ride in the Wonkavator.

Charlie and the Chocolate factory visited me twice today entirely by coincidence. The first time was while driving in a minivan to New Hampshire to pick up two daughters at a summer camp. I picked up a CD of Roald Dahl stories before the five-hour trip in a desperate effort to have on board entertainment for our youngest one, and there among Dahl’s characters were Charlie and Grandpa Joe. I had forgotten he created them.

Upon arriving at the camp, we learned that the annual camp play was…you guessed it. I’ve always loved the movie Willie Wonka and the Chocolate factory with its Wang Doodlers and Vernicious Canibs, but, frankly, I’ve always wanted to raise my hand and object to the Grandpa Joe story line.

Charlie Bucket’s family is destitute. They eat cold cabbage soup and stale bread on the best of days, and Mrs. Bucket, Charlie’s mom, works her fingers to the bone doing laundry to support Charlie, her out-of-work husband, and four bedridden mouths, one of which is Grandpa Joe.

When Charlie wins the Golden Ticket, Grandpa Joe feigns surprise that he can even stand. Two days later he’s flying around a wind tunnel with a belly full of Fizzy Lifting Drink.

I just want to say this once in my life, just to be on record.

Grandpa Joe is a B-U-M, and no one can tell me otherwise.