Word: motors
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...automakers. It's been a tense week, and not just for Detroit's CEOs. In recent days employees of the Big Three in Detroit have been going about their jobs as a life and death debate waged in Washington. Just this week, executives from General Motors Corp., Chrysler LLC and Ford Motor were offering reporters sneak previews of vehicles due out in 2009 and 2010 despite huge uncertainty surrounding their future. "We've got to stay focused on what we do," notes Ed Welburn, GM vice president of design, who says his designers have no choice but to keep...
...means of empowerment for those languishing on the margins of fiscal life, granting economic agency to people like the elderly, the disabled or the underemployed, who have little opportunity to earn money. For example, in some systems one can "bank" Time Dollars for tasks like child care and changing motor oil. It's not whether you're employed or what financial assets you have that matter, says Les Squires, a consultant on social-networking software who has been working with groups developing alternative currencies. Each person has "value" that is "exchangeable" on the basis of time spent or a given...
...Detroit is truly a huge melting pot," says Alee Darwish, 53, a retired assembly line worker employed by Ford Motor Company for 32 years. "The car companies were no doubt responsible for that." Like other Lebanese who flocked to the area in the early 1900's, Darwish's father immigrated to the U.S. seeking a job at Henry Ford's Model T plant, as the pioneering automobile entrepreneur was offering a large $5 a day. Following in his footsteps, both his sons ended up as career hourly employees at Ford, applying sealer to the seams of metal on the assembly...
...recent decades, African-Americans from the South, as well as Asians, Indians, and Pacific Islanders, added to the Motor City migration. All contribute greatly to the automotive community and the area's diverse cultural fabric. Ik Hyoun Kim, a Korea native who started with Chrysler's IT department in 1984, notes, "I could have provided a stable life for my family in Korea in my line of work, but the opportunities for my children's education were far better in the U.S." One of his two sons landed at Harvard University, to many immigrants the ultimate achievement of the American...
...does Detroit's immigrant autoworkers feel about the federal bailouts? Like most people in the Motor City, protective. "Why did the government bail out the banks and not the car companies?" asks Jerry Lelito, a General Motors plant manager for 23 years. "Those bankers make huge windfalls, and the executives walk away with golden parachutes. These are hardworking American workers who make up the industrial core in this country. So many other industries depend on the existence of the U.S. auto industry." Warren David adds that while the younger immigrant generations are not as directly affected (many have received better...