FLINT, Mich. — It is mostly vacant land now, more than 200 acres surrounded by a barbed-wire fence that once was the site of the biggest General Motors manufacturing complex in the country.þþIn the 1980s, more than 27,000 workers passed through the gates every day into Buick City. But only one of its many factories is still standing, a run-down engine plant known as Flint North. þþJust 450 workers are left there, witnesses to the dismantling of Buick City and survivors, so far, of G.M.’s financial collapse. And even as the company gets nearer to bankruptcy, they do not want to leave.þþSince 2006, G.M. has persuaded 60,000 of its hourly employees — half of its union work force in the United States — to take cash buyouts and give up their jobs.þþBut the workers at Flint North have passed on every offer, no matter how rich.þþThey are part of the last generation of auto workers who were hired when G.M. dominated the United States market decades ago. And even with all the offers to leave, they stay, showing up for a job that is, in many cases, the only one they have ever known. þþ“I just get up in the morning, wash up, and drive here every day,” said O. C. Cooper, a 64-year-old machine operator at Flint North. “It’s just been a way of life.”þþOf the 61,000 workers left in G.M.’s United States factories, more than 15,000 could retire today based on age or because they have more than 30 years of service.þþWorkers who have wrestled with their decision to stay say it is not an easy choice. If they were to retire, they would give up annual wages of about $60,000 for a pension worth half that. And there are no guarantees that pensions will remain intact in a bankruptcy.þþThe prospect of settling into their retirement years on a G.M. pension is not the security blanket it once was, even with a one-time cash payout to ease the transition. þþ“Everything changes when you go out there,” said Mr. Cooper, who has been with G.M. for 42 years.þþSo they keep punching the clock, building cars and engines and transmissions for as long as G.M. has work for them.þþ“For me to go out and get a job these days, at my age and with a limited skill set, where do I go?” said Victor Brown, 55, a repairman at Flint North.þþG.M.’s most recent buyout offer ended in April, and the company said that 7,000 workers took it. At Flint North, 235 workers accepted offers. þþThat left 450 workers in the 104-year-old engine plant. About 50 of them were hired in 1985. The rest have been with G.M. since at least the Carter administration.þþA year ago, Mr. Brown and other skilled tradesmen at the plant were offered $62,500 to retire with all their benefits intact. This year, the offer shrank to $20,000, and a car voucher worth $25,000.þþAfter 36 years with G.M., Mr. Brown, who is divorced and putting his son through college, was not ready to take the money and run.þþ“I chose this job. It’s a good job and it pays well,” he said. “We’re working. A lot of people aren’t.”þþHe is taking a big chance that he can survive one more major downsizing at G.M. The automaker, which is subsisting on $15.4 billion in federal loans, needs more deep cuts to fulfill the restructuring requirements laid out by the Obama administration.þþAn additional 21,000 jobs and 13 plants are slated to be eliminated in the company’s latest turnaround plan, part of G.M.’s last-ditch effort to avoid a bankruptcy filing.þþThe company has spent $7 billion since 2006 on buyouts, which also includes offers to workers at its former Delphi parts unit. It is questionable whether G.M. could use any future federal loans to sweeten retirement deals for workers. þþBy rejecting multiple offers, the older workers have cast their lot with G.M., for better or worse.þþ“For these workers, this isn’t a stock portfolio that’s going down — it’s your life at stake,” said Harley Shaiken, a labor professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “These jobs have been the backbone for so many communities.”þþThe vast majority of the older workers are concentrated in Michigan and other Midwestern states. But a large number also work in G.M. warehouses around the country that distribute parts to dealerships.þþAt two parts warehouses outside Los Angeles, where the youngest worker has been with G.M. for 24 years, only six of the 116 active workers accepted last month’s retirement offer.þþMany workers believe they need to keep drawing their $28-an-hour paycheck because they do not know what will happen to their pensions if G.M. files for bankruptcy.þþ“There’s a lot of fear and a lot of apprehension about retiring and then having what was promised you taken away,” said Charles Dones Jr., financial secretary for the United Automobile Workers Local 6645 in Fontana, Calif., and a 32-year G.M. veteran.þþUnder its union contract, G.M. could replace the warehouse workers with new hires at wages as low as $14 an hour.þþThat may make sense for G.M., but not to workers in their mid-50s with mortgages to pay and families to support.þþThe workers at Flint North are hoping to ride out whatever the future brings, including bankruptcy.þþMark Sitarski, a 55-year-old machinist, said he figured that active workers might be treated better than retirees in court. “Working, at least you know you’ve got something,” he said. “They can take anything away once you leave.”þþThe Flint workers share a survivalist attitude for having lived through the demise of Buick City, which was closed in 1999 and demolished three years later. þþAll that is left is Flint North, which built more than 20 million of G.M.’s 3800-model V-6 engines until production ceased last August. Some workers are removing equipment and preparing to start building four-cylinder engines for the Chevrolet Volt and Cruze at a newer plant across town next year, while others still build torque converters, gears, pistons, shafts and other powertrain components.þþThe plant is surrounded by crumbling and empty buildings, and dead-end streets that once led into Buick City. It is a neighborhood of boarded-up stores and near-desolate streets, with the exception of the overflowing parking lots on Sundays at the Baptist churches along Industrial Avenue across from the plant. þþThe last 450 workers feel fortunate to have another factory to go to, having seen too many friends and relatives laid off over the years.þþ“General Motors has taken good care of me,” said Mike Stoica, 60, who started at G.M. fresh out of high school in 1967. “I’ve had a good life for not having a college education and doing something I love to do.”þþThat way of life is vanishing at G.M. plants across the United States, but no city has been affected like Flint. When Buick City was at its peak production in the mid-1980s, G.M. had 80,000 workers spread across the city. Now it is down to about 5,000, a number that could fall more in a bankruptcy.þþ“People talk about closing a plant,” said Bill Jordan, president of U.A.W. Local 599 and a 32-year G.M employee. “We closed a city here. Everything that any city had, we had here.”þþIn the union hall’s auditorium, an aerial photograph on the wall showed the sprawling Buick City network of factories and the lots jammed with cars. Mr. Jordan pointed to the plants one by one, saying, over and over, “That’s gone.” þþ
Source: NY Times
