She Was The "Alternative" To Scott Walker?

Today is Labor Day.

If I were President (as if I would want to be!), it's one of the holidays I'd keep on the calendar.  I'd get rid of all of the religious holidays because the US is a secular country (at least, it's supposed to be).  I'd pass a law that workers were entitled to two or three "floating holidays" for whatever purpose they see fit.  And the only official Federal holidays would be Martin Luther King Day, Presidents' Day, Memorial Day (which I would call Remembrance Day), Independence Day, Labor Day and Veterans' Day.  (As I become more anti-war, I become more pro-veteran.)  And, perhaps, the birthdays of a few of my heroes and heroines.

OK, enough of fantasy-land.  I've just had lunch with a good friend, who happens to be the widow of a longtime union worker.  And I'm going to see another friend who is a member of a union--of adjunct faculty members in her university.


On Labor Day last year, I wrote about the strike of Schwinn metal polishers and platers that began the week after Labor Day in 1919.  As Schwinn had bought out a number of smaller bicycle manufacturers, some of which continued to sell bikes under their own names, the strike led to a widespread boycott of a number of bicycle and motorcycle makers in the US.  (In those days, the industries were much more closely related than they are now.)  I also mentioned the Schwinn strike in 1980, which is often blamed for the closure of the old South Side plant in Chicago, when in truth the facility was outdated.

Now, of course, Schwinn is not the only bicycle company (or firm in any industry) with a dark side to its labor history.  All US bicycle manufacturers, with the exception of Worksman Cycle, have outsourced most or all of their production to low-wage countries with few or no labor organizations.  Of the 1.5 million bicycles sold annually under the Trek brand, only about 10,000--or 0.06 percent of its production--come from US facilities.  And none are ever touched by union hands before they reach your local dealer.

This became an issue in last year's Wisconsin gubernatorial election.  Few contemporary American political figures so openly express their hostility toward unions as the Badger State's governor, Scott Walker, does.  One thing you have to say for the guy:  He puts his money where his mouth is.  Oh, wait, he doesn't put his money anywhere.  Let's just say--if in a dry, academic way--that his actions are consistent with his rhetoric.

This guy is running for President.  Perhaps he wouldn't be if he'd lost his gubernatorial re-election bid last year to Mary Burke.  Days before the election, it seemed entirely possible.  But now he's in the race to become the Republican candidate in next year's Presidential election. 

I am one of the last people in this world who would praise, let alone endorse or elect, him.  However, to be fair, he was not responsible for Trek's labor and business practices. Ironically, his Democratic challenger in the Wisconsin gubernatorial race was, at least partially.

Mary Burke during her 2014 gubernatorial campaign in Wisconsin

Mary Burke, as you may know, was the CEO of Trek.  Her father founded the company in the mid-1970s.  For the first few years of the company's existence, all of the frames were made in their Waterloo, Wisconsin facility.  In the early 1980s, Trek began to import frames from Japan--as Schwinn and other American bike companies did--and assemble them as bikes sold under their own name.  Those Japanese bikes were mid-level models sold by Schwinn and other companies; for Trek, they were the lowest-priced models.  Still, they were good bikes and Japanese workers, at least, were being paid fair wages and had rights to organize.

However, as the decade went on, Trek--like other American companies--began to have bikes made for them in Taiwan.  At one point, Taiwanese bikes would account for more than 80 percent of those sold in the US market.  Now that number is about 5 percent, with 94 percent coming from the country that, in the 1990s, would begin to supply Trek and other companies. I am talking, of course, about China:  a country where workers would actually have more rights than they have now if someone like Scott Walker were in charge!

(When Trek bought the Gary Fisher, Klein, LeMond and Bontrager brands during the late 1990s, Trek immediately--you guessed it--shifted the remaining US production of those companies' products to Taiwan and China.)

Now, I am not laying the blame for the bicycle industry trends I've described solely at the feet of Ms. Burke.  It must be noted, though, that as a high-ranking executive in Trek (Her family referred to her as "the brains" of the company!), she had at least some responsibility for her company's decision to move production to Taiwan and, later, China.  As Trek accounts for over a third of bicycles sold in US bicycle shops, its practices are watched and emulated in the industry. 

Also, it has been noted that Ms. Burke helped to prevent Trek's Wisconsin workers from forming a union or joining forces with another (as Schwinn's Chicago workers did with the United Auto Workers). 


To think that this Mary Burke positioned herself as an "alternative" to Scott Walker!  It's enough to bring up whatever you're eating at your Labor Day barbecue!

 

Jerry's Bike

I wasn't a devotee of the Seinfeld show.  Then again, I don't think I've ever been a devotee of any TV show in a very long time.


However, I will admit that I saw a few episodes of Seinfeld during its original run.  One thing I remember is that he always had a bicycle--which neither he nor anyone else seemed to ride--hanging in his apartment.


I was reminded of it when I saw this bike:

As I recall, the bike in Seinfeld's apartment was a Klein mountain bike--in a really scary fluorescent green that makes the bike in the photo seem restrained.  Actually, this bike is probably the most understated Klein mountain bike I've ever seen.


Although they weren't my cup of tea, some Klein road bikes, like this one,  weren't bad-looking:

In the mid-1970's, Klein was one of the first builders to make bicycle frames from oversized aluminum tubing.  Trek took them over around the time Seinfeld's show began its run.  It seems that Trek made Kleins until about five years ago.  Since then, I haven't seen any new Kleins--or, for whatever reasons, the shops I frequent aren't selling them.

Strange But True In NYC

New York City may well be the "Frankenbike" capital of the world.  Even if you live here for a couple of decades, you'll see permutations of bikes you simply won't see anywhere else.  


Today I'm going to show you two "Frankenbikes" that were parked near a train station in my neighborhood.


Until I saw the first, I never realized what, exactly, my commuter bikes have always lacked:

They are mountain bike "bar ends," which were very much in vogue during the mid-'90's.  I used a pair myself.  There was a good reason for them:  Mountain bikes, at least as they were configured then, didn't offer a variety of hand positions.  That could be very tiring on a ride of an hour or more. So, bar ends like these were made to clamp on the ends of flat bars.  Most, like these, used a wraparound clamp; a few had ends that inserted into the handlebar, much like a bar-end shifter or brake lever.


Here, the person mounted them on the middle of the handlebar to get an "aero" position.  That's exactly what the  owner of that bike needs.

It's a Schwinn Suburban from, I'd guess, the early 1970's or thereabouts.  Essentially, it was a Varsity or Continental with upright bars, fenders and a single rather than a double chainring in the front.  Like the Varsity or Continental, it's a tank.   At least the "aerobars" can  help its rider lop a few seconds off his or her commute.


The bike also has a generator lighting system.  I wonder whether it works.  Lots of people buy or inherit used bikes like that one that have generator lights on them.  Often, the person who buys or inherits the used bike never even knows whether or not the lights actually work, for they do no night riding--or, perhaps, even know how to use the light.  Or the person riding the bike may well know that the light doesn't work but simply doesn't bother to take it off.


At least the generator and lights are where they're supposed to be.  The same can't always be said for any bike you'll see parked here in NYC:

A headlight in a water bottle cage--on the top tube of a women's bike?  In some crazy way, it seems ingenious.  After all, the light on that bike is in a less prone position than it would be on other parts of the bike.  Plus, it could be really useful for checking runs in my stockings or rips in my pants legs.


No kind of bike paint job is more widely detested, justly so, than the '80's fades. (Some of the most unfortunate samples from that genre were found on Klein bicycles of that era.)  However, around the same time, there was another kind of paint job that was as almost as bad, and common on European bikes (or bikes for the European market,at any rate).  I call it the tricolored Easter egg look:

The owner of this bike, or the person from whom the owner bought or was given this bike, probably brought it in from Italy or someplace in Europe, as I don't think this model was ever inported to the US.  In fact, I think that around the time the bike was made, Atala bicycles were no longer being imported to this country.  Some of their better models were rather pretty, but I was never particularly impressed with the rides of the ones I tried.  Plus, the workmanship was such that we used to joke that its paint and chrome flew off when the bike was operated at too high a speed. 


Anyway, even though these two bikes caught my attention, they're hardly the most mutated bikes I've seen here in New York.  Unfortunately, I never photographed the crazier bikes I saw. But then again, I'll probably see others that are just as zany.