Last winter Bennington, Vt., got decimated by layoffs. I wrote, “The faces of a bad economy: Unemployed workers try to find their way in tough times,” just after the holidays. It was published in the Bennington Banner on Jan. 7, 2009.
BENNINGTON – Sarah Weber started noticing a difference while leaving work in her last few weeks on the job.
Weber, an administrator at NSK Steering Systems America, had to walk through the manufacturing plant’s floor to get to her car. “It used to be just as noisy and bustling as if you were going out at lunch time,” she said at her Johnsonville, N.Y., home on Monday, “but the last few weeks, it was so quiet walking out at 5 o’clock.
“It was kind of creepy — just so deathly quiet.”
The company had already laid off about 60 employees by mid-November, including the entire third shift, a number that has grown to about 200 today with automakers continuing to struggle.
Lisa Nutbrown, a 37-year-old single mother of four, was one of those who lost their job. She used to work the assembly line on the third shift, 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., making steering columns for Nissan Altimas and Maximas, until she was let go after two-and-a-half years on Nov. 26.
“It’s hard because I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said while looking after her 3-year-old son, Zackary, on Tuesday at their Pleasant Street apartment. “I was out doing what I was supposed to be doing — paying my bills, doing the right things — and, you know, to get knocked down like this, it’s very disheartening.”
At the Bennington plant, workers have made steering systems for some of the world’s top-selling automobiles for the past 20 years.
A week after Nutbrown lost her job, Weber, a 35-year-old single mother of one, was called into her boss’ boss’ office. “I figured with the number of people being let go, my days were numbered,” she said while sitting in her kitchen, her third-grade daughter’s artwork hanging on the ‘fridge, “so I was sort of — sort of — mentally prepared for it … I walked in and said, ‘Well, I guess it’s my time.’”
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It took Nutbrown a week to file her initial unemployment claim.
“With all the people being laid off, you couldn’t even get on hold,” she said. “It just kept saying, ‘All lines are busy.’”
Nutbrown, who has jet black hair, tongue, lip and eyebrow piercings and a lizard tattoo on her right forearm, used to make more than $13 an hour, or about $525 a week, “pretty good money for this area,” she said. Now, she gets $309 a week through unemployment, qualifies for food stamps and collects child support, which she had done previously.
“Thank God I have the unemployment,” she said while Zackary bounced around the apartment, “It’s keeping things afloat. It’s maybe not where I would like my life to be financially, but it’s keeping everything — you know — ”
Nutbrown has three daughters, Audrey, Emily and Weslyn Blair, who are 19, 16 and 10, with her first husband, and Zackary with her second.
Audrey is a first-year student at the University of Vermont studying psychology, and although she has talked about coming home to help, Nutbrown has convinced her to stay. “I’ve tried to reassure her that we’ll be all right,” she said. “I told her, ‘Do what you need to do because someday you’ll be able to contribute back and help in the long run better by being there.”
Audrey is a first-generation college student in her family.
Nutbrown, who grew up in Williston before moving to Bennington in 2003, said all of her children have been supportive, giving her hugs and offering words of encouragement. “They’ll come up to me and say, ‘We love you. We know this is hard, but it’s OK,’” she said.
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Weber lives with her daughter, Allie, on 66 acres of land in an old white farmhouse with red shutters on a dirt road in Johnsonville, about 20 miles west of Bennington. Their dog, a mutt named Dudley, watches over the front porch. They also have two cats, Mintu and Fuzzball, and a hermit crab.
“‘No use crying over spilled milk,” the blonde-haired Weber said about her predicament while making Allie a peanut butter and banana sandwich for an after-school snack. “What do I gain from being bitter? I’ve got family close by, my parents have loaned us a bit of money and we’ve got plenty of wood on the front porch.”
She grew up down the road in the village of Valley Falls, N.Y. Her parents, a few cousins, an aunt and her ex-husband and his girlfriend, who Weber is friendly with, also live in town.
Weber, a college-educated woman who started working at NSK as a temp in 2001, said she never imagined herself in this situation, and it has been emotionally tough not working. “It is really strange — really strange,” she said. “It’s really just starting to hit me even though it’s been a month.”
She said she was “shell-shocked” for the first week.
Nutbrown said it has been especially hard being out of work as a single mother, as she used to socialize with the men she worked with. “Standing next to someone for eight hours, you get to know their life, their family, and they become like family,” she said. ” … It was my adult time.”
For Nutbrown, the job was also her first full-time employment.
“I based my identity on my job,” she said, “and now it’s like, ‘Who am I? What am I? I don’t have a job to go to.’ I never understood that feeling until they took it away.”
Times have been financially tough at both homes. Nutbrown said she was unable to buy her children Christmas gifts, while Weber had to use her savings on Allie.
Santa Claus also chipped in to get Allie an American Girl doll that she had been desperately wanting.
Both Nutbrown and Weber said they should be able to provide the essentials. However, Weber said she’s starting to closely watch the grocery bill, and she and Allie aren’t going out as much. “It’s OK because she and I like to do projects together,” Weber said, “watch a movie together or bake something.”
She said expenses have gone down too, as she no longer needs gas to get to work, a baby-sitter for Allie or to do as much laundry.
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It’s easy to see how both women could hold some resentment toward NSK, but both said they enjoyed working there and would return under the right circumstances. “I don’t fault them for doing what they had to do,” Nutbrown said. “I don’t like it, but they had to maintain their business.”
The company has said that laid-off employees will be invited back if work orders increase.
Weber, who was paid through December, said she still maintains a close relationship with her former boss. Nutbrown, who received a $25 Price Chopper gift card from NSK on Christmas and who was invited to the company Christmas party, said she also keeps close contact with her former co-workers.
Nutbrown said she has considered becoming a licensed nursing assistant. She worked at a nursing home when she was 18, and although it was not her favorite job, it would allow her to work the third shift and be steady employment.
She is also thinking about moving her family from Bennington but said she wants her daughter, who’s a sophomore, to be able to finish high school in town.
Weber recently signed up to take the New York state Civil Service Exam, hoping to find administrative work. She said she has a history of administrative jobs in different fields.
As for her and Allie, “We’ll be OK,” she said before pausing for a moment, “— we’ll be OK.”