We have a new president, but what’s the difference? This is what Levi English wants to know, as he hits the numbers on his cell phone and calls Local 710 of the Construction Workers Union. America went to the polls, but English still has no place to go to work.
He is the face behind the raw arithmetic that all the political contenders talked about every time they asked for our votes. They promised new jobs. English, who is African-American, expressed his pride in Barack Obama but his hunger for a paycheck. Over the past month, he is one of at least 200,000 across the country who showed up for work and were told to go back home.
He is 52 years old, and he’s been a construction worker for 15 years, but not always steadily. He is a skilled laborer, but the work comes and goes. He works with power tools, he works with concrete, he knows grading. Now he picks up the phone each day and asks the people at his union office if there’s any work to be had and wonders if a new president will help turn his life around.
He had a pretty good job working on the expansion of the Constellation Energy plant on Fort Smallwood Road in Baltimore County. But then the job disappeared the same way it has for so many others over the past several months, while the presidential contenders made promises and George W. Bush counted the days until he can slip away.
So English calls Local 710 every day, because he wants to remind them he’s out here, and he’s hungry. And he goes through the same dialogue, the way he did on Election Day.
“This is Levi English. Any work?”
“Nothing today. We’ll let you know.”
And that’s it.
Can the new president make a difference? The political speeches are ending, but the unemployment lines have not. English says he saw the end coming months ago.
“They started laying people off five at a time,” he said. “Carpenters, laborers, iron workers, all of ‘em. Then they went to 10 at a time. We had 45 guys in my group when we started out. By the time they came for me, we were down to 10. When we started working down there, they said it was a two-year job. But that don’t mean you’ll be there for two years. The job goes on, but you don’t.”
As Americans went to the polls on Tuesday, the unemployment rate was 6.1 percent. Economists anticipate at least another 200,000 jobs lost in October, maybe 250,000, the biggest drop in five years. There is talk of the unemployment rate reaching 7.5 percent next year.
English says he was making $15.87 an hour, pretty good money. Now he’s collecting $800 every two weeks in unemployment pay. There are two kids at home. His wife works as a phlebotomist at Johns Hopkins Hospital. They married in April. They live in an apartment that costs $750 a month. In April, all the numbers still added up.
“I told the family, this is gonna be the worst Christmas,” he said. “I told ‘em it was gonna be real limited.”
At the Belair Road offices of Local 710, business agent Chuck Kratz recited numbers showing English is not alone.
“We’ve got 850 members,” he said, “and right now 70 are on our out-of-work list. It’s the slowest year we’ve had in the four years I’ve been here. We’ve all been waiting out the election. Half our union depends on federal dollars, on highway funds. Waiting for money to trickle down. Some of ‘em, they’re waiting four and five months between jobs. That’s the standard this year.”
So today we have a new president-elect but not yet a formula for new jobs.
“I’m a steady worker,” English was saying the other day. “I go to work, and I don’t miss no time. I just want to provide a decent living for my family.”
His voice rose in frustration. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and hit the union office phone number.
“Is Chuck there?” he said. “Mr. English here. He’s not there? Well, who is?”
When another voice came on the line, English said, “Anything there?”
“What do you need?” the man on the other end said.
“What do I need?” English said. “I need a job.”
“I know,” the voice said, chuckling slightly.
“You’re laughing,” English said, “but I’m out of work.”
A moment later, he hung up the phone. “Said they’d call me when something comes up,” he said. “That’s what you get every time. But I keep calling ‘em anyway. I don’t want ‘em to forget I’m out here.”
He doesn’t want the new president-elect to forget, either.
