The Auto Industry Isn't Just Car Business
Friday, December 12, 2008SUSIE GHARIB: Washington could be the Grinch that steals Christmas if the auto industry doesn't get some kind of bailout. But when we say the auto industry, we don't just mean factories. The industry is really workers and their families, shaken by the possibility of lost jobs, health care and pensions. Diane Eastabrook visited a small town in Wisconsin and met a family to whom those losses are very real.
DIANE EASTABROOK, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: At their kitchen table in Milton, Wisconsin, GM retirees Marvin and Lynn Wopat reminisce about last Christmas and the gifts they gave their grandkids.
MARVIN WOPAT, GM RETIREE: Each family got a big electric car. We bought them electric cars that they can drive up and down the streets in.
EASTABROOK: But this year GM's financial woes are spoiling the Wopats holiday spirit.
LYNN WOPAT, GM RETIREE: As a matter of fact I haven't even started any Christmas shopping. I just feel, I feel pretty sad about it. This is the first year I've really felt this way about it.
EASTABROOK: The Wopats worry a GM bankruptcy could rob them of their pensions. But their concerns also extend beyond themselves. The couple both retired from GM's Janesville, Wisconsin plant. That plant is ending production two days before Christmas with roughly 1,200 workers losing their jobs. The Wopats son and daughter were recently let go from that plant and a son-in-law is losing his position at GM supplier Lear. Marvin Wopat, who helped his kids get jobs at GM, is taking the plant closure personally.
M. WOPAT: You don't want to see your kids hurt and you don't want to see them struggle and that's the hard part, sitting back and watching them struggle where that struggle wasn't there before.
EASTABROOK: But Janice Dillander, the Wopats daughter, considers her recent job loss a new chapter in her life. The 39-year-old mother of two is hitting the books, studying to be a nurse at Blackhawk Technical College. Dillander admits she is facing financial challenges she never dreamed of a year ago. But she thinks in the long run, her future will be more secure.
JANICE DILLANDER, FORMER GM WORKER: I like caring for people and I think I'll be good at it. And it's interesting and I think that that field is going to be around for awhile. It's not something that they can take away from me like the auto industry.
EASTABROOK: Marvin and Lynn Wopat remain hopeful GM will receive a government bailout, if not now, when President-Elect Barack Obama takes office next month.
M. WOPAT: He cares about people who I call it are in the trenches, down in the trenches and I believe he's going to do everything he can for families.
L. WOPAT: It's just going to take longer.
EASTABROOK: Diane Eastabrook, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Milton, Wisconsin.
