Neff Zone Column

Print Edition: Saturday, July 30, 2005

POST LABOR DAY SCHOOL START NOT A TOURISM PANACEA

The tourism theory goes like this: If Michigan would delay the opening of school until after Labor Day downstate families would flock north and generate millions of dollars for the tourism industry. Happy days would be here again! Hence House Bill 4803 passed by a 69-40 margin and was sent on to the Michigan Senate.

I’ve been writing about tourism and recreation for various newspapers and magazines for over 25 years so I’ve attended hundreds of meetings about tourism. Truth be known, here’s what the tourism industry really wants schools to do, albeit with a bit of tongue in cheek: Hold classes 180 days per year, start after Labor Day, have Thanksgiving weekend off, take a two-week Christmas vacation, have a one-week mid-winter break, make Presidents Day a four-day weekend, take a one-week spring break, take four days off at Easter, sprinkle in a couple of four-day weekends at other points of the school year, and end before Memorial Day.

No, you’re not crazy, the math doesn’t work on this, so the legislature tried to make things easier by changing the required 180 days of school to 1,098 hours. The new thinking is that rather than adding days to the year schools could just extend the length of the school day. Hmmmm, a longer school day means we’ll have some northern Michigan students who will get on the school bus in the dark and arrive home in the dark. There will be months when they never see the light of day. I have moles in my back yard that will see more sun than the average first grader.

I know tourism is a big part of northern Michigan’s economy, and I also know why tinkering with the school calendar is such a popular idea – it’s one of the few things tourism people can control. But just moving back the start date of school (by itself) won’t change tourism traffic much because there are too many forces they can’t control. Let me tell you why.

First of all, all tourism is weather sensitive. There is no activity in any season that’s comfortable in 40-degrees and rain. Good weather trumps about anything else when it comes to tourists.

Second, changing the school schedule for kids does not change the vacation days available to parents, especially moms. A hard and fast rule in tourism is that moms determine if, when and where families vacation. So, unless you mandate time off work over Labor Day for moms, the family isn’t going anywhere.

Notice, too, that even a post Labor Day start for school does not change the opening date for sports and extra-curricular activities – August 8. This means that families whose children are involved in extracurriculars are not going to travel once practices begin.

Even if those gnarly points were solved, the most troubling reason tourism has been flat for the past few years is due to the employment picture. You know all those people downstate who used to have good jobs with benefits? The ones who bought the boats and snowmobiles and had extra cash to spend on vacations. Well, thousands of those jobs have been outsourced and the former vacationers are working at minimum wage jobs with no benefits and their money is now being spent on stupid stuff like shelter and food. There are thousands of people in this category who won’t be coming to northern Michigan on vacation.

Like the workers at a wiring harness plant in Sterling Heights, down by Detroit. They used to make $7.50 an hour (hardly a king’s ransom) producing wire harnesses for auto companies. Their jobs went to Mexico where workers made $1.40 an hour. News flash: Those Sterling Heights workers aren’t coming on vacation.

The Mexicans who took the American jobs soon found out that in today’s greed-infected world economy even $1.40 is extravagant pay. They lost their jobs to Hondurans who’ll work for 55-cents and hour. News flash: The Mexicans aren’t coming on vacation.

The Hondurans who took the jobs from the Mexicans were in for a shock. It turns out their jobs were moved to China where the pay is 45-cents an hour. News flash: The Hondurans won’t be coming on vacation.

Oh yeah, the Chinese workers who took the jobs from the Hondurans don’t really make 45-cents and hour because the factory is state owned and room and board is deducted from their "pay." Essentially they are slaves. News flash: Slaves don’t get days off so the Chinese won’t be coming on vacation.

This is happening all over Michigan: GM workers in Flint (automobiles and trucks), Electrolux workers in Greenville (vacuum cleaners), Brunswick workers in Muskegon (bolwing balls). The list goes on.

The reality is that people who don’t have good jobs with benefits, whose jobs don’t allow them vacation days, whose day-to-day existence is now a scramble just to make ends meet, and who are just one illness away from a health care catastrophe and financial ruin are not going to spend money on vacations. That’s something no amount of calendar juggling can correct.

Tourism boosters are some of the nicest and well-meaning people I’ve ever met, but they may be overmatched on this one. HB 4803 will probably pass through the senate and be signed into law by the governor. It’s feel-good legislation and the politicos will smile, dust off their hands, and call it a day. It’s my fear that by making this small gesture the politicians will dodge thornier issues and more meaningful long-term solutions.

Jim Neff is a local columnist. Comments to neffzone@gmail.com . Read Neff Zone columns online at www.neffzone.com/cadillacnews .