Clear signs of greed
For 34 years, Bill Trowbridge was a sign hanger, one of those guys who puts up billboards.
He started working when he was 17. The company changed names and ownership over the years, from Donnelly, to Ackerley, to AK Media, but it prospered, and Trowbridge and the other guys who wallpapered billboards all over Eastern Massachusetts made a decent living.
Five years ago, the media conglomerate
Last March, Clear Channel told the remaining workers that they were unilaterally changing their hours, wages, and benefits. Men who were making $24 an hour, working a 40-hour week, were told they would be paid $15 per sign and would have to hustle to do as many signs as they could, safety be damned, with work hours set arbitrarily by management.
"They brought us in on a Friday and gave us 10 pizzas and some soda and said this was how it was going to be," Trowbridge said, sitting in a Dunkin' Donuts near his Norwell home. "We figured it was a 30 percent pay cut, right off the bat. But it was more than that. Every guy in our local has a family; every guy has kids."
Basically, the company said this: We don't care if a regular schedule and paycheck allowed you to have a family life, because now you belong to us.
For Trowbridge, the change in working hours was a particular hardship, because his wife, Robin, was battling cancer. He had to do a lot for their 12-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter.
On March 19, Trowbridge and 23 others went on strike. Clear Channel brought in replacement workers from across the country. Guys from Texas, Florida, and Georgia came in and took jobs that had been in Massachusetts families for generations. The strikebreakers were paid off in the dark. One said he was making $9 an hour, which apparently is big money back in Texas.
Just before Memorial Day, Clear Channel notified the strikers that even if the strike was settled, they could not have their jobs back. The timing was a nice touch, given that many of the sign hangers are veterans.
It got nasty on the picket lines. Trowbridge got arrested, accused of throwing a bottle at a strikebreaker in Fall River. Trowbridge says he didn't do it. He faces trial next month.
In August, 13 months after she was diagnosed and four months after her husband went on strike, Robin Trowbridge died. She was 42 years old.
"Going out on strike was a blessing in disguise," Bill Trowbridge said. "I was able to be home with my wife. I've been able to help the kids make the transition back to school and all that."
He stared at the cup of coffee in his hands.
"And you know what? The way they treated us, I'm glad to be out of there. If they said tomorrow, 'Strike's over, come back,' I don't think I would. I don't want to work for people who treat families like that. This was a successful company, and they gutted it. For what? So the stockholders could make more money? This is all about greed."
The Mays family, the moneybags behind Clear Channel, like to portray themselves as part of the family-values crowd. But if you value your family, you can't work for their billboard company.
Bill Trowbridge was making about $50,000 a year. Mark Mays, the Texas-based Clear Channel president who heads the billboard division of the company founded by his father, was paid more than $5 million last year.
The unemployment checks run out next week, and at this point Trowbridge doesn't know what he'll do to support his kids.
But he does not regret, for a moment, going out.
"I've got to look in the mirror every day," Bill Trowbridge said.
Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cullen@globe.com.
