White-collar job loss cripples factory towns

What people are truly nostalgic for, Glowacki said, isn’t merely the grind of factory jobs but the community fostered by the old ethnic neighbourhoods, with their churches and clubs where residents once gathered. Chain restaurants in strip malls outside the city proper have supplanted many of these institutions. Housing vacancies have risen around the downtown core.

So instead, Erie’s goal is now more to recapture some of those lost whitecollar jobs by renovating the downtown. Business leaders see a model to replicate in the Cincinnati neighbourhood of “Over the Rhine” with its charming Italianate brick buildings and hipster restaurants.

After taking a tour through Erie’s neighbourhoods and industrial sites, Glowacki, 66, said he feels hopeful that the city now has a plan of action.

“I’ve never felt more positive about what is happening in Erie than I do right now,” he said.

Yet the clouds remain as the fates of white-collar and blue-collar workers remain entwined.

In October, GE Transportation announced layoffs for 570 unionized workers at the locomotive plant. The move accompanied the loss of 200 management and other white collar jobs at the same plant, said Scott Slawson, who represents the GE workers as president of the local union.

GE said it transferred work out of Erie because of a tough market for locomotives and a need to be more cost competitive in a global rail market. The company has shifted 225 hourly jobs to a plant in Fort Worth, Texas, to try to preserve U.S. jobs, Deia Campanelli, a spokeswoman, said in an email.

But in Erie, ripple effects from previous layoffs pummeled more than 40 local companies that helped supply the factory. The company is also seeking to divest its transportation division, which is spreading uncertainty for every class of workers in Erie.

“When that corporate jet leaves Erie, there’s not room for everyone on that jet — there’s very few seats,” Slawson said.