FARAI CHIDEYA, host:
And if you want to take a look at jobs that are hit hard by gas prices, you have to go to the factories. Many automobile companies have been forced to downsize and restructure. SUV and truck sales for Ford and General Motors have dropped dramatically. Americans are trading in oversized gas-guzzlers for more fuel-efficient compact cars, and that change affects employees like Claire McClinton. She's an auto worker for General Motors in Flint, Michigan. Claire, how are you?
Ms. CLAIRE MCCLINTON (Auto Worker, General Motors): I'm just fine. How are you?
CHIDEYA: So how long have you been working for GM?
Ms. MCCLINTON: Well, I've been working for GM for almost 29 years.
CHIDEYA: How have things changed over those three decades in terms of, specifically, how you felt about job security? When you first started, what - was the industry solid, and what about now?
Ms. MCCLINTON: Well, when I first started the industry was solid. You knew that once you got a job at General Motors you would work there until you retired. You would retire with a good pension and health care and what have you. And now that situation has radically changed for a number of reasons.
CHIDEYA: Were friends of yours let go in the waves of layoffs that have happened over the course of the years? I mean, have you had friends that - you know, I mean just last week, more than 17,000 factory workers officially left GM, taking buyouts or incentive deals. And Flint has lost 1,800 workers. Do you have friends who have been affected?
Ms. MCCLINTON: Yes. Everyone - no one is untouched, even those who don't work for General Motors, because you know someone who does, and you have family and friends and what have you. Not to mention the butcher, baker and candlestick maker, those jobs and industries that depend on the auto workers to survive. So it's been very devastating for us.
Right now, we're in the beginning. This is the first of a two-week shutdown. It's an annual shutdown for changeover. And this year, they're telling some of us that we're going to stay out longer because they do not - the sales are down for the trucks and what have you, and we're - some of us are being laid off on top of those who just took the buyout.
CHIDEYA: How are you doing? It sounds like you're in a pretty secure position. Is that true?
Ms. MCCLINTON: Well, no one is secure. There's been rumors that our plant, the Flint Metal Centers, the stamping plant, that was one of the plants in the GM repertoire that said that if you hired in here, you never would have to worry about being laid off. And right now, there's so many rumors going on that some of our co-workers are putting in for other plants and other states, afraid that they may lose their jobs there.
CHIDEYA: Keith, when you listen to Claire talk, one of the things that comes to mind for me is the ripple effect that she talked about, how, you know, basically, if people aren't bringing in auto money, it hurts the whole town. What does that ripple effect do to a place like Flint?
Mr. KEITH REED (Business Reporter, Cincinnati Enquirer): It could devastate a place like Flint. I actually have family in Flint, Michigan. I mean, if you look at a place like Flint and many other towns - first of all, let's establish here that most people, when they think about the U.S. auto industry, they think about Detroit. But there are all of these other places that are close to Detroit or throughout the Midwest and even in some cases in the South, that supply the auto industry. And the major employers in those towns are going to be the factories that supply interiors, parts, you know, machine shops, those sorts of things that supply the auto makers in Detroit.
Now if you're an independent butcher, for example, or if you are a grocer, if you sell clothes, whatever, you're going to be dependent on the money coming in that has always been there, at least for the last several decades, from that plant that supplies General Motors or that supplies Chrysler. When those jobs go away, you're going to be affected just as much.
And this happens on a massive scale, not just to one or two stores in one or two towns, but this happens across the Midwest and across the South, mostly, by the dozens in these plants and in these towns.
CHIDEYA: Claire, how do you think Flint is going to fare over the coming months?
Ms. MCCLINTON: Bad situation. We were already job insecure, if you want to call it, over recent years with the tremendous movement out of the country. Our jobs had been outsourced very rapidly, as well as the technology changes. A lot of the robots and things like that are replacing the manual labor. And so we were already facing a lot of job insecurities. This energy crisis is just adding to that and making our situation - I mean, we don't see an end in sight in the immediate future.
CHIDEYA: Well, Claire, Keith, thank you so much for talking to us.
Mr. REED: Thanks a lot.
Ms. MCCLINTON: Thank you.
CHIDEYA: Claire McClinton is a General Motors employee in Flint, Michigan, and Keith Reed is a News and Notes economics contributor and a business reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer. He joined us from member station WVXU in Cincinnati, Ohio. And for more on our Road Trippin' series, including tips on how to save gas, go to our blog, nprnewsandviews.org.
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