American dream fades at Axle plant in Hamtramck - Charlie LeDuff - text and video

http://www.detnews.com/article/20090604/METRO08/906040415/American-dream-fades-at-Axle-plant-in-Hamtramck

Thursday, June 4, 2009
Travels With Charlie
American dream fades at Axle plant in Hamtramck
Charlie LeDuff / The Detroit News

Hamtramck

As the world focused on the collapse of General Motors Corp. and the goings-on at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and 1 Wall Street, a sad but not unrelated scene played out this week at 2140 Holbrook St.

At 5:57 a.m., Bill Alford, the president of UAW Local 235, shambled up the street to punch in for work at the American Axle & Manufacturing plant No. 8. He cut a pathetic figure Monday, one shoe untied and dressed in a hockey sweater with a large C embossed on the chest. C is for captain, but Alford is now the captain of almost nobody.

As GM declared bankruptcy, more than 500 UAW workers employed at the plant here quietly received a letter by FedEx informing them that they were indefinitely laid off. Normally presidents of local unions do not go to work at the plant, as management prefers not to have labor agitators on its factory floors. But when there are too few employees to do the work, Alford is required by contract to return to the plant.

And so Alford had the humiliating task of operating a forklift, loading crates of tools and machinery onto a truck bound for Texas, he said.

"They don't want a middle class," said Alford, 34, standing in the rain, the shoe still untied, referring not only to the managers of American Axle, but also the owners of industry in general. "I see that in the future people will have to move to Mexico for a job. This is a dark day for the American laborer."

General Motors may be entering a new chapter in its life, but the American worker still confronts the little problem of NAFTA and the cheap Mexican and subsidized Canadian labor he cannot compete with.

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