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Many ex-autoworkers seek work at lesser wages. (http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060825/AUTO01/608250354/1148)

Louis Aguilar - The Detroit News - August 25, 2006

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/10_00_per_hour_job_seekers_lineup.jpg
Photo - Ankur Dholakia - The Detroit News

Job-seekers wait for an interview with Faurecia, an auto parts supplier - 2,000 attended.

STERLING HEIGHTS - Six years ago, Fred Hibbard, 46, was making $22.50 an hour as a machinist in a tool and die shop.

On Thursday, he was among some 2,000 job-seekers who lined up for a chance at a $10-an-hour assembly job with no benefits with a French auto parts supplier.

Faurecia SA, which has facilities in four Metro Detroit communities, drew an estimated 4,000 people, many of them former auto workers like Hibbard, over the two days of its job fair Wednesday and Thursday, a sign of the times in a state where the unemployment rate hovers at 7 percent.

The long line of job applicants Thursday snaked through a city park outside the Sterling Heights Parks and Recreation Center, the site of Faurecia's job fair. It was just around the corner from where Hibbard used to work.

"That tool and die shop is dead," he said. "And now, I could really use this job. Ten dollars an hour is a lot better than living on your 401(k)."

Out of 17 job applicants queried by The News on Thursday, eight of them once had auto factory jobs that offered higher hourly wages and health benefits; 14 currently have jobs that pay less than $10 an hour; 11 have children; and only two have health insurance.

Many said they wouldn't have considered taking a $10 an hour job just a few years ago.

But times have changed in Michigan, with an unemployment rate among the highest in the nation and high-paying factory jobs dwindling by the month.

"I've pretty much given up trying to get a job that pays $20 an hour," said Pebble VanConant, a veteran toolmaker who was making that kind of money five years ago. Her firm closed, she said, because the company kept losing work to Chinese and Mexican firms willing to do the same jobs at a much lower rate.

"Five years ago, if you would have offered me this job I would have laughed at you," said Debbie Kowalke, a former administrative assistant who was downsized and now "just survives" on a waitressing job. She wants to work at Faurecia and still keep the restaurant job, she said.

"I really need this. And look, I'm not the only one," she said.

Hiring bright spot
It was unclear how many people the auto supplier would ultimately hire. Representatives from Faurecia could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The company specializes in automotive modules for interiors, such as seats and exhaust systems. It supplies its parts to General Motors Corp, Ford Motor Co., DaimlerChrysler AG, BMW and Volkswagen.

The fact that Faurecia is hiring at all is the exception right now for the state's auto industry.

The high unemployment rate of the past year in large part is because of massive job cuts at GM, Delphi and Ford, which have trickled down to other industries.

Earlier this year, 47,600 union workers at GM and bankrupt supplier Delphi Corp. accepted early retirement offers or cash buyouts.

Last year, Ford eliminated some 3,000 white-collar positions in North America. Another 4,000 salaried jobs and as many as 30,000 factory jobs by 2012 are to be cut as part of its restructuring plan announced in January.

Ford is weighing a major expansion of its attrition program for hourly workers and could extend buyout or early retirement offers to all of its blue-collar employees in the United States.

By year's end, Michigan will have 20,000 fewer auto jobs than it did at the start of 2006, predicts Comerica Inc. Chief Economist Dana Johnson. Michigan has lost over 200,000 manufacturing jobs since 1999.

How many millions have the Big Three CEO's raked in while all of this has been going on? Meanwhile Toyota and Honda are kicking our collective manufacturing butts!

It's a travesty, or a crime? I don't know.

It's not right, IMHO.

That's really sad. I can't imagine what it's like to be put in such a demeaning position, competing against 4,000 people for compensation that most teenagers can exceed.

Don't worry about it, it's great for the company's bottom line and shareholders encourage it.

(where's the sarcasm emoticon?)

Hi All:

___When I read this news story yesterday, I was almost in tears … Well not really that far down the emotional scale but I thought it was important enough to include as a News item even though it is really not CleanMPG’s mission to report this kind of real world misery for lack of a better term. In any case, it saddened me greatly given $10.00 per without benefits is not a living wage for a family in any way shape or form that I know of and you can just imagine the very highly compensated CEO’s and CFO’s of the major auto manufacturers and suppliers in Michigan licking their chops getting ready to drive wages and benefits down to this level knowing what many in Michigan are desperate to work for … Call it the China/India effect, the flattening of the worlds economy, whatever but these types of stories will eventually effect the wages you and I will be competing against no matter how insulted we may think they would be in our present employment. I am not saying a 4 year degreed Nurse, Teacher, Electrical engineer, or even higher educated people like Doctor’s and scientists will be seeing this kind of misery in their lifetime but whenever there is a glut of the non-employed, companies will take advantage and offer what the market will bare. It is almost their fiduciary duty to cut costs but it is also a slap in the face to that bottom line employee who is struggling to make ends meet when you have a CEO’s like Wagoner who had his pay cut to ½ of the year prior to somewhere south of $2.2 million per year this year not including stock options, a golden parachute that even today is being worked on, and other corporate perks that would make the average Autoworker and any other worker for that matter sick. I guess the way the world works today, this is the way it will continue but to see a company who lost $10.6 billion over the previous year allow a CEO to receive that kind of compensation (you know he and his wife will not be using food stamps any time soon) but something is definitely wrong and there is not a darn thing anyone of us are going to be able to do about it :(

___I hope the health of GM, Ford, and DCX improve mightily over the next few years as those new UAW wages (some have been but cut to levels that many here would not work for themselves!) have an effect on what you, I, and especially our Children and Grandchildren can expect and/or will be able to receive in the future … You almost need a master degree to get an entry level job in a high tech industry to make < $40 K per year to start. What’s next, a Dctorate to make $35K in 15 + years from now let alone those that will be making our automobiles at $7 and $8.00/hour w/ a minimum of benefits?

___In the bigger scheme of things, there are great success stories I wish I could share in detail (Gary G. has a son with a Master’s from MIT that has a success story all his own) but these success stories are far and few between when compared to the misery of those 4,000 hopeful members of society standing in line to grab the few $10.00 per hour sans benefits in the Automotive manufacturing industry in Michigan the other day :(

___Good Luck to us all …

___Wayne

Welcome to the Walmartization of America. By 2020, there will only be three kinds of jobs: CEO/Entertainment/Sports millionaires, Government work, and Walmart-type work that pays starvation wages and no benefits. Look for the estimated life expectancy to drop back to 56 or so.

we are in deep doo doo, and nobody wants to see it. here in minnesota it's the insurance CEOs that are raping everyone. it's very discouraging. i hope i can make it another 5 years and then retire. i work for a very good company, and in our area, i am very lucky to have it. the owner has gone out of his way to set it up in order to prevent layoffs, even in a downslide in the economy. he is still at the office, every day.....he, too, is sickened by what big corporations are doing to the peons they employ.