CHUCK JONES, the president of United Steelworkers Local 1999, had predicted that at least one out of the roughly three hundred laid-off factory workers would die after the factory closed. In the first two years after it closed, I counted three who passed away from stress-related or alcohol-related illnesses. It’s been hard to keep track of the strokes and heart attacks since. That’s the final tragedy of a factory job: after working ten hours a day, sometimes seven days a week, just to get a pension, far too many die before they get to enjoy it. Losing a job can be deadly in ways that
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