As worker for Delphi for 32 years, Diane Walsh, 52, worked in just about any job the plant had: ball joints, seat pads, motor mounts, brake hose, and in the lab.
Her first job, though, sounds the best.
“I started out working on the Camero dash pads,” she says with a laugh.
Before the Delphi plant closed in December 2008, it produced parts for GM. When Diane first started she says there were close to 8,700 people working at Delphi; when the plant closed, there were only about 300 left. And Delphi is not the only plant to have closed. Dayton has seen around five plant closures in the past year.
“The the last day we had what we called a ‘Last Supper,’” says Walsh, laughing. There wasn’t much to do in the plant during that last week, she noted. But up until the last minute people were sure that the plant would pull through.
“I think people were still in denial, they couldn’t believe that a manufacturing plant that large could close their doors. But they did,” says Walsh.
While Diane now works as a full-time babysitter for her grandchildren, a job with which she is pretty happy, she’s looking into going back to school and getting her nursing degree.
“I’m still trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up,” she says. “I never thought I would go back to school at my age.”
Many of Walsh’s friends and former colleagues are in the same boat, looking for work in job sectors they never thought they would enter. And with all the plants closing, the city of Dayton is suffering.
“The foreclosure rate here is awful,” Walsh says. “It worries me what kind of town this will become. It used to be that if you wanted tools, you came here. We had a lot of production and you could go from one good job to another. Now, there is no industry left.”
