MILWAUKEE — More than a half-century ago, Milwaukee was known as one of the biggest manufacturing hubs in the country. That’s far from the case today.
Another legacy manufacturer now plans to leave the city’s north side.
Master Lock’s union president says workers were told the company needs to replace the equipment used to make its security products and that it was going to be too expensive. The union says the biggest cost is the loss to the community the manufacturing plant calls home.
Opportunity.
"When I think about what we're losing is just the opportunities,” said Mike Bink.
It’s something the worker union’s leader says vanishes with one announcement.
"It's been here since 1921,” Mike said.
Master Lock is ending its century-long commitment to Milwaukee.
“This is a loss to the whole city, but especially the north side, and haven't they taken enough hits?”
A neighborhood surrounding 32nd and Center will arguably take the biggest economic hit. Mike says 65 percent of the plant’s employees are African-Americans who live in the area.
"We have people that do walk to work,” he said. “We have people taking the bus to work."
Mike knows it’s far from the first manufacturer to leave this part of the city’s north side. During his four decades here, he’s seen at least 50 large companies in the industrial epicenter of Milwaukee dwindle down to one.
“Now we're leaving and Milwaukee, what used to be the toolbox of the world?" He said.
A little more than a half-century ago, Milwaukee was considered an industrial capital of the Midwest. U.S. Census data shows at the time, 43 percent of Black people who lived in Milwaukee had jobs in manufacturing.
But after a majority of those blue-collar opportunities left the city, disparities worsened.
A UW-Milwaukee study exposed how Black income is 30 percent less today than it was in the 1970s and that’s after factoring in inflation.
"It's heartbreaking,” said State Rep. Kalan Haywood.
Master Lock is in Haywood’s district. He knows the devastating impact African Americans have faced in Milwaukee as manufacturing jobs have become harder to find.
"When you look back decades ago when industrial plants and jobs were here in Milwaukee on the north side, public safety was increased, crime was down, you had home ownership increase, you had families, the structure of a family household was better, and prominent,” he said.
While Haywood considers another loss to the industry frustrating, he sees it as an opportunity to usher in a new employer for the next century.
"The job now is how do we remedy that and bring some jobs back into the district where folks don't have to leave out of Milwaukee to get a job,” he said. “Those fathers, those Black men can actually find jobs here in Milwaukee in their community."
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