Michigan feels brunt of GM's bankruptcy - State hit with 7 of 14 plant closures

Source: Detroit News

Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Reinventing GM
Michigan feels brunt of GM's bankruptcy
State hit with 7 of 14 plant closures, with Oakland hardest hit
Louis Aguilar / The Detroit News


Michigan, which soared the highest during the glory days of the American auto industry, will suffer the greatest under General Motors Corp.'s decision to shutter more plants and shed more workers.

In the latest round of cutbacks, announced Monday as part of GM's historic move to file for bankruptcy, an estimated 8,900 jobs will be lost at GM facilities in Pontiac, Orion Township, Livonia, Flint, and Ypsilanti Township. The cuts will follow the closure of a Grand Rapids stamping plant on Friday that employed hundreds more. Nationwide, GM plans to eliminate 21,000 jobs at 14 plants, plus three warehouses, in eight states.

Michigan's share of the total job loss: 42 percent. And that doesn't count the trickle-down impact on suppliers, stores, real estate and other segments of the state's economy.

Oakland County is the hardest hit, with 6,600 lost factory jobs and three plants.

Read more: http://www.detnews.com/article/20090602/AUTO01/906020350/Michigan-feels-brunt-of-GM-s-bankruptcy

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The ripples are coming.

that if they did it made any material difference unless what they bought was an exact match for whatever GM were producing.

Drive past a Big 3 plant. The employee parking lot will tell you what's built there.

Do some drive foreign cars?

A few do. Very few.

You will find very, very few. Many times if some one would have the nerve to park one out in the lot, the vehicle would end up with flat tires or badly keyed. Please don`t blame the victims in this mess that has happened at the auto company's. I`m one of those victims.

> Many times if some one would have the nerve to park one out
> in the lot, the vehicle would end up with flat tires or
> badly keyed.

This, combined with the following from a post down-thread ...

> all those workers who thought they lucked into a decent
> paying lifetime job

... tends to erode the sympathy of many observers ...
:shrug:

How fucking stupid can you get?

Driving past the Lordstown GM plant with my father and listening to him complain about half the cars in the parking lot being foreign made. (Dad was a union man) He always said they were screwing themselves buying foreign.

To this day, whenever I drive past that same plant, I still see a remarkable number of foreign cars in the lot.

I've never seen a foreign car coming out of their lot.

Orion is one of their newest plants, my husband worked there when he was alive. It is not closing down permanently. Of course it will be shut down a while to retool, but it's only temporary.

Pontiac assembly is shutting down, but that's been planned for a while. There was talk of selling it to a movie studio but recently there has been news that one of the movie companies have backed out of the plan.

The news said that the plants on standby (Orion, Spring Hill, and Janesville) would compete for the new small car.

Orion was built in the late 80's and they increased its size back in the late 90's before my husband died. GM threatened to shut it down all those years too. However, I don't see it happening.

So it was probably built in the late 80s too (the first Saturns came out around 91-92). I'm not sure about the Janesville plant either.

that Obama is playing. Yeah right.

Michigan has already taken a beating for a long time now, what are all these people going to do? Where are all those jobs that the bailout was supposed to create? And why did we spend billions on a company that was just going to go into bankruptcy anyway?

I feel for all those workers who thought they lucked into a decent paying lifetime job, and now are seeing it all fall apart.

:sarcasm: MI may never recover from this.

Michigan to a great extent was a one industry town, for no real reason. The auto company got started there, partially because of the access to the Great Lakes chain and some of the raw materials to which that gave them access. But it could have been built alot of other places as well. Over time, that advantage disappeared and competition for the business grew up around the world. Without that one business, Michigan (and much of the midwest) should be a relatively rural area. Instead, we have the litter of an industrial revolution that could not be sustained. And one only need look at the litter in England of their pass through the industrial revolution to see that these towns do not "rise again". Our "rust belt" extends over a very long distance, with Chicago being the lone exception. Other than that, the industrial heart of our nation, from Pittsburgh to St. Louis, is in rapid decline with no real prospects for the future. The populations are becoming concentrated on the coast lines. 80% of the country lives within 100 miles of the border. Wisconsin, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan will always see some industry, but the "blue collar middle class" is a thing of the past. It isn't clear what, if anything, will ever replace it.

I do not expect a revival of the past.

I do expect a remarkable future. This is a place where cycles of exceptional booms and exceptional busts reach back for centuries. That's not a coincidence.

May I suggest you read this book, by Pulitzer Prize winner Bruce Catton?

http://www.amazon.com/Michigan-History-States-Bruce-Catton/dp/0393301753/ref=sr_1_24?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244001085&sr=8-24

You'll find it a couple of hours well-spent.

of the most valuable resource in the world (fresh water). Much of the population growth out west has occurred in the middle of the desert. Water is already a huge issue and the population is still growing. The need for water may eventually push the people out of the southwest.

As far as what will replace the lost automotive jobs, MI has options. We have had a lot of investment from lithium battery companies, as well as other green . Here's a blog from Gov. Granholm on MI's future with green energy:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-m-granholm/after-gm-and-chrysler-ban_b_209906.html

MI has also a flourishing film industry. The midwest does have a future despite what you may think. The midwest may be down now but that won't always be true. The south/southwest is doing well now but that also won't always be true. Population trends change and to think that they won't again is naive.

pretty soon, they will be paying people to purchase houses, in fact, my husband bought a 1,500 sq ft all brick colonial in a decent neighborhood and the bank OWED the title company on closing!!! between paying the agent, and closing costs they ended up owing over $200 to hand over that house!!! It needs work, but in VA in that same condition, in that type of neighborhood, that house would go for over $100,000!!

... with housing prices shooting through the floor, young entrepreneurs would be flocking to the area to take advantage of cheap homes and a less competitive market. Detroit is going to need its economy transformed, and I don't see any reason why they couldn't get a foot up in the tech market.

Where I grew up Bethlehem Steel ruled. Everybody's father, not a few mothers, brothers, etc., worked for Beth Steel. You needed a high school education to work for them, to make a living wage.

My high school's student body aimed at mediocre and hit it. 98% of the students graduated, the valedictorian was a machinist apprentice. Maybe 2% went to college. Pre-calc had 11 students, consistently, out of a class of a few hundred, almost all seniors. The school sucked, but the standardized test score came back with something like a 75% average, standard deviation was something like 1%, with 3 standard deviations getting you down to 72 and up to 79 or so.

What high tech company wants workers like that? They aspire to a solid C average, because a B average takes more work and a D average won't get them the lifetime union job? As one friend's father said, "You want to go to college? Why? Look at your brother, married, with a house, and a high school education. It's good enough for my father, me, your brothers, it's good enough for you." Of course, 3 years later the steel plant had only 600 employees, mostly security guards protecting a shut down plant.

What's cheaper? Spending $300k for a house, or spending $3M in training people who aspired to learning how to add 1/7 + 4/17 in 11th grade, which, oddly is exactly what they were learning in 4th grade and 7th grade and 9th grade? Or do you ask all new people to move there, driving out the former UAW workers because they can't find jobs (except as janitors) or pay their taxes?

for their living moving here, buying $50 homes, gutting them and rebuilding themselves for the sweat equity. The old Polish Village - Hamtrack (sic) is one area, so far.

("GM: Some Bondholders Want Bankruptcy")-Business Week, April 24th.
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/apr2009/bw20090424_731357.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily

Yes, credit default swaps, those exotic instruments that helped to bring on financial ruin in the markets and were rightly outlawed for years, rears it's ugly head right here. People are sitting on a pile of cash if millions suffer, and they want the cash.

A few things come to mind when I think about the GM bankruptcy. Corporate greed has sucked the blood out of the working class. Everyone wants to blame the workers, but they aren't the ones getting the golden parachutes, the limo service, use of the corporate jets, millions for salaries, and huge tax breaks. The health care industry is also to blame for the downfall of GM. If you took GM's commitment to health benefits out of the loop, the company would not be filing for bankruptcy. How many more companies are we going to destroy by shifting more and more money into the coffers of hmo's?

Corporate greed my eye.

It IS corporate greed.
It was corporate greed when Clinton signed NAFTA too.

Durbin was right when he said that Wall Street owns our government.

You talking about corporate bigs or government bigs?

Sounds like government to me...

I don't even want to see the outcome for Michigan after this all over & done with, let alone the trickle down effect it's going to happen with company's around the country.

beautiful state, hardworking people and they don't deserve this.

For the next year our schools are safe. After that, we're screwed. Depend on a Republican Governor after this......

It may take time but MI will rebound. I don't think we'll get a Republican governor. The GOP doesn't have anything to offer. It will be 2006 all over again. They'll run against Granholm (which didn't work in 2006) and people will vote for the person who actually has a plan (likely Cherry).

It will be a very thankless job for years to come.

I was kind of hoping for Granholm to get the Supreme Court appointment partially because I feel bad for what she goes through. The weirdest part is I've seen some progressives starting to repeat the GOP talking points regarding her. I definitely wouldn't want the job.