Word: poletown
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...production costs, which analysts put at $11,500 an auto, compared with $9,800 at Ford and $9,300 at Chrysler. A prime reason, ironically, is GM's multibillion-dollar rush to reduce labor costs by installing robotic factories, many of which still have bugs. Example: at Detroit's Poletown luxury-car plant, the taillights on some models tended to melt in the automated paint-hardening ovens. The technology * should gradually become a financial advantage as it begins to operate more smoothly. Says Chairman Smith: "You know we are not making clothespins. We are making a car with...
...Auto Workers has taken socially activist positions on many issues, including civil rights, the environment and welfare. But economic pressures on the auto industry have forced the union generally to support relaxed auto-emission standards, for example, and to back the building of a new Cadillac plant in the Poletown section of Detroit that would provide jobs but has uprooted hundreds of poor families in the process...
...plan moved into high gear, so did the opponents. The Poletown Neighborhood Council, led by Chairman Tom Olechowski, 37, a state legislative aide and lifelong resident of the area, contacted Nader for his support. The consumer activist fired off a letter to General Motors Chairman Roger Smith, demanding that the company find another site "that does not destroy a community of 3,500 Americans." Young lashed back, calling Nader "a carpetbagger" and labeling his effort as an "obvious attempt at sabotage." The Detroit Coalition of Black Trade Unionists shot off its own letter to Nader, accusing him of "doing...
Good question. Opponents contend that city appraisers pressured residents to sell their properties. Yet last week's turnout at Immaculate Conception Church, one of 16 Poletown churches marked for destruction, was hardly impressive. "The area never was very organized politically," says Rick Hodas, 28, vice chairman of the Poletown Neighborhood Council. "People lived here 50 years, paid their taxes and minded their own business." But other residents contend that the plant is actually a godsend, for it gives them the chance to leave the aging community and still get a decent price for their homes. Says John Kelmendi...
...other 10%, that feisty minority vows to save the neighborhood from the wrecker's ball. Yet even if Poletown were saved, the community would never flourish as it did a generation ago. Concedes Henry Michalski, a Poletown Neighborhood Council supporter: "Over the long term, the place would continue to deteriorate because the old people will die off and the young people have moved off." For many residents, however, Poletown remains very much home, and the shock of being so hastily asked to move out has honed their resistance. "The plant project had a note of finality to it from...