In 2006, the main gas line in Elaine Fisher’s Milford home caused an explosion that “blew up” the dwelling – while she was inside of it. As a result, her husband, Roy, retired from his job at Chrysler’s Sterling Heights Assembly Plant after 32 years of working on assembly lines so he could care for her.

Then six months later, Roy found out he had prostate cancer. And Elaine was already dealing with the effects of fibromyalgia, a muscular condition that peppers her body with pain. Several long-term health problems meant their health insurance was even more of a necessity than ever.

The couple is back living in their home, but now they have a new worry on their minds. Because Roy retired and didn’t take one of the buyouts offered by Chrysler, he’s counting on the pension and benefits he worked so hard to keep. However, it looks like cuts are looming.

“They said they’re going to take (away) our dental and our optical insurance,” Elaine said.

With Chrysler’s recent bankruptcy and merger deal with Fiat, the couple worry that their health care benefits are going to be swept away so the automaker can flip itself right-side up and become viable again.

“Now we’re scared to death,” Elaine said. “We need our medical insurance.”

The Fishers were two of several dozens of automotive and steel workers who joined local and federal officials at the “Keep it Made in America” bus tour rally May 11 at Dodge Park in Sterling Heights. The public rally, sponsored by the Alliance for American Manufacturing, United Steelworkers, and the Mayors and Municipalities Coalition, expressed support for keeping domestic manufacturing jobs in the United States.

Sterling Heights resident Chris Ramotowski has worked at the SHAP for nine years and he said he is worried about his job security.

“This isn’t a safe seniority,” Ramotowski said. “Everyone’s in trouble.”

Ramotowski is not working at the moment since the plant shut down for a month or two while Chrysler’s bankruptcy-required restructuring takes place. He could be permanently displaced next year since the plant is scheduled to close in December 2010.

John Roberts of Macomb Township is in the same predicament as Ramotowski; he is employed at the SHAP, but not working there at the moment. Roberts waved an American flag during the rally, hoping to stress the importance of keeping American jobs in America.

“Eight Chrysler plants are scheduled to close in America – but none in Mexico or Canada,” Roberts said. “But it’s our tax dollar.”

During the rally, Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero fired up the crowd when he talked about what the government is – or isn’t – doing to help the troubled American automakers and the families affected by the entire economical situation.

“It’s bailouts and bonuses for Wall Street,” Bernero said. “And it’s bull(expletive) for working families.”

Sterling Heights Councilwoman Maria Schmidt told rally attendees that the troubles facing the Big Three automakers have far-reaching effects.

“We’re devastated as a community, as a state and as a country,” Schmidt said.

Despite the announced closure of the Chrysler SHAP, Sterling Heights City Manager Mark Vanderpool maintains the city is doing everything possible to minimize the impact locally. He said Sterling Heights has a large manufacturing base and the Chrysler factory that may close next year is part of that.

“I say Œmay’ because we’re going to do all that we can to save that facility,” Vanderpool said. “There will be a Fiat product of some sort in SHAP.”

Tuesday, May 19
9:00-1:00 pm

Room HVC 215 in the Capitol Visitors Center A Half-Day Event to Discuss the Impact of and Steps That Can Be Taken To Address the Crisis in America’s Auto Sector.

Co-sponsored by
the Alliance for American Manufacturing, United Steelworkers, and Mayors and Municipalities Automotive Coalition.

Attending the event will be union leaders, Mayors, Suppliers, Auto Dealers, and Community Members.

Show Your Support by Signing In, Attending the Event And Picking Up Materials on Why The Auto Sector
Matters to All Americans and What Political Leaders Need to Do!

If you have any questions about the event please call (202) 393-3430.

To RSVP please send a response to: rsvp@aamfg.org

Washington, D.C. – From May 11 to May 14, thousands of workers whose paychecks are tied to the U.S. auto industry joined bus tours through 11 states to showcase the ripple effect of economic devastation and lost jobs in industries ranging from steel and paper to shops on Main Street and public education. For highlights from the 11-state bus tour visit www.madeinamericatour.org.

On Tuesday, May 19, from 9:00 AM-1:15 PM in Room HVC 215 of the Capitol Visitors Center, national economists, labor and business leaders, Members of Congress, local elected officials and everyday workers will bring those stories to Washington and present principles for revitalizing the auto industry by supporting American jobs and communities. The first panel begins with MSNBC’s Ed Schultz moderating a discussion featuring Leo Gerard, International President of the United Steelworkers, Wilbur Ross, Chairman & CEO of WL Ross & Company, and Dr. Susan Helper, Case Western Reserve University, Professor of Economics. Labor and business leaders as well as elected officials and workers will participate in additional panels examining the auto supply chain and the government’s response.

U.S. auto manufacturing impacts millions more workers than those on assembly lines. Millions of workers depend on auto manufacturing companies as customers – in 19 U.S. states auto supply manufacturing is either the top or among the top five industrial employers – and millions more depend on auto workers as customers in their stores and restaurants. Local governments depend on income tax and property tax from middle class families to pay for education, health and safety services. To learn more about how the auto manufacturing industry impacts local communities visit www.americanmanufacturing.org and www.usw.org.

Recognizing the consequences that U.S. auto manufacturing has on communities across America, the Alliance for American Manufacturing, United Steelworkers and Mayors and Municipalities Coalition are presenting Congress and the Administration with principles for revitalizing the auto and auto parts manufacturing sectors, and driving economic activity beyond the assembly line floor:

Stimulate domestic demand for automobiles, such as an incentive program like cash-for-clunkers with a strong domestic content requirement and restoring credit for consumers and businesses.

Only risk American tax dollars to support domestic jobs, investment, and innovation, and reject off-shoring as a path to profitability for GM and Chrysler.

Restore cooperative innovation and research and development efforts. A National Automotive Research and Development Program, for example, could provide incentives for companies to create programs that lead to better, safer, and more fuel-efficient vehicles – built domestically.

Change health care policy to eliminate structural problems for the domestic auto industry. The Big Three’s foreign competitors benefit from either national health care plans or through offering substandard benefits.

Ensure trade policy promotes U.S. interests. The U.S. imports $41.5 billion in cars and light trucks from Japan and $7.5 billion for Korea, while we export only $534 million and $373 million respectively. We must address non-tariff barriers to trade in these markets, end currency misalignment and aggressively enforce our trade laws to eliminate unfair trade practices.

Additional panel guests and speakers include: auto supply workers, auto dealers and workers from the bus tour as well as Tom Conway, United Steelworkers international vice-president; Scott Paul, Alliance for American Manufacturing executive director; Mayor Virg Bernero (Lansing, MI); City Manager Peter Auger (Auburn Hills, MI); Mayor Kevin Wixom (Hinkley, MI); Mayor Carty Finkbeiner (Toledo, OH); Mayor Marlene Anielski (Walkton Hills, OH); Major Charles Brunner (Bay City, MI); Mayor Katherine Procop (Twinsburg, OH).

Leo W. Gerard, USW international president said, “Traveling around the country last week, we heard from laid-off people in Fort Wayne, Indiana, who desperately want to go back to work making auto parts. They are angry that their tax dollars might be used to export jobs. In Granite City, Illinois, a fourth-generation restaurant owner agonized over the thought that he may not be able to hand down his diner to his baby girl because local plant closings have hurt his business. All over the country workers on and off the assembly line are counting on our leaders to recognize that there’s much more at stake than profits. Saving the auto industry is about 7.2 million people, their families and their communities. Our teach-in aims to bring this message to Washington – that this is America’s fight, and a strong domestic auto industry matters to all of us.”

SPRING HILL — The Save America Coalition made a stop in Spring Hill Thursday as part its “Keep It Made in America” bus tour campaign.

The Alliance for American Manufacturing, a partnership of several leading U.S. auto manufacturers, and the United Steelworkers joined the United Auto Workers to raise public awareness of the economic importance of the American auto industry and its suppliers.

More than 300 people filled the Local 1853 UAW Hall to rally in support of American jobs and the future of the GM/Spring Hill manufacturing plant. The Spring Hill rally was the second-to-last stop of the campaign to draw attention to the fate of millions of jobs supported by the U.S. auto industry and its supply chain. The bus tour made 36 tour stops in 11 states over four days.

Drawing one of the biggest crowd responses of the day was UAW Region 8 Director Gary Casteel, who had harsh words for Republican Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker.

“Months ago Sen. Corker had little to say in support of this plant when he could have,” Casteel said. “If this plant goes down it lands at the feet of Sen Corker. Bob Corker has been after the union-represented workforce and working people. We should remember that next time it’s time to send somebody to represent us Washington.”

Casteel also commented on former President George Bush’s performance with regard to the manufacturing industry.

“It’s eight years of Bush policies that sent our jobs out of the country. We need to restructure things so the jobs we need stay on this soil instead of being sent to foreign soil,” he said.

Organizers said they arranged the bus tour to bring together business, labor, and community leaders to rally with them in support for policies to revitalize the auto sector and U.S. manufacturing.

“More than 7 million jobs are tied to the fate of the auto industry beyond the direct employment and economic impact of auto production and assembly,” said Lou Delatone, field coordinator for the tour. “This is an effort to bring the facts before the people who will be affected if plants like this one in Spring Hill are shut down.”

UAW members and General Motors retirees were joined by representatives of local auto suppliers, car dealers, management and labor officials and civic representatives to call for an auto industry restructuring plan that maximizes domestic production, automobile industry jobs and retains American automobile production capacity.

“This is something we should have done 20 years ago,” said Earl Hensel, a retired GM worker who was one of the original 99 employees to open the Saturn plant in Spring Hill.

Hensel worked for GM for 40 years, moving to Spring Hill from Ohio where he was the superintendent of manufacturing for the Parma, Ohio, GM plant. Hensel was part of the team that helped develop Saturn’s original “people system” — the contract agreement between the Saturn workforce and company management. He said he was in favor of what might be the next step in the labor-management relationship.

“I think it’s a good idea for the union to have some ownership in the company,” he said of the proposal recently presented as part of GM’s restructuring plan. “We’re making a super product, and we have to work together.”

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – Hundreds of western Kentucky auto workers attended a rally to fight for their jobs.

The rally Wednesday at the United Auto Workers hall was sponsored by the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a group that is traveling around the country educating people about the U.S. auto industry’s problems.

The Daily News in Bowling Green reports that local and national auto leaders spoke to workers, urging them to contact elected officials in an effort to keep automotive jobs in the United States.

The General Motors Corp. plant in Bowling Green makes the Corvette and the Cadillac SLR.

Teach-In Showcases National Economics and “Home Economics;” Stories from
11-State Bus Tour on the Future of 7.2 million Auto-Related Jobs in America

Washington, D.C. (May 14, 2009) – From May 11 to May 14, thousands of workers whose paychecks are tied to the U.S. auto industry joined bus tours through 11 states to showcase the ripple effect of economic devastation and lost jobs in industries ranging from steel and paper to shops on Main Street and public education. For highlights from the 11-state bus tour visit www.madeinamericatour.org.

On Tuesday, May 19, from 9:00 AM-1:15 PM in Room HVC 215 of the Capitol Visitors Center, national economists, labor and business leaders, Members of Congress, local elected officials and everyday workers will bring those stories to Washington and present principles for revitalizing the auto industry by supporting American jobs and communities. The first panel begins with MSNBC’s Ed Schultz moderating a discussion featuring Leo Gerard, International President of the United Steelworkers, Wilbur Ross, Chairman & CEO of WL Ross & Company, and Dr. Susan Helper, Case Western Reserve University, Professor of Economics. Labor and business leaders as well as elected officials and workers will participate in additional panels examining the auto supply chain and the government’s response.

U.S. auto manufacturing impacts millions more workers than those on assembly lines. Millions of workers depend on auto manufacturing companies as customers – in 19 U.S. states auto supply manufacturing is either the top or among the top five industrial employers – and millions more depend on auto workers as customers in their stores and restaurants. Local governments depend on income tax and property tax from middle class families to pay for education, health and safety services. To learn more about how the auto manufacturing industry impacts local communities visit www.americanmanufacturing.org and www.usw.org.

Recognizing the consequences that U.S. auto manufacturing has on communities across America, the Alliance for American Manufacturing, United Steelworkers and Mayors and Municipalities Coalition are presenting Congress and the Administration with principles for revitalizing the auto and auto parts manufacturing sectors, and driving economic activity beyond the assembly line floor:

– Stimulate domestic demand for automobiles, such as an incentive program like cash-for-clunkers with a strong domestic content requirement and restoring credit for consumers and businesses.

- Only risk American tax dollars to support domestic jobs, investment, and innovation, and reject off-shoring as a path to profitability for GM and Chrysler.

- Restore cooperative innovation and research and development efforts. A National Automotive Research and Development Program, for example, could provide incentives for companies to create programs that lead to better, safer, and more fuel-efficient vehicles – built domestically.

- Change health care policy to eliminate structural problems for the domestic auto industry. The Big Three’s foreign competitors benefit from either national health care plans or through offering substandard benefits.

- Ensure trade policy promotes U.S. interests. The U.S. imports $41.5 billion in cars and light trucks from Japan and $7.5 billion for Korea, while we export only $534 million and $373 million respectively. We must address non-tariff barriers to trade in these markets, end
currency misalignment and aggressively enforce our trade laws to eliminate unfair trade practices.

Additional panel guests and speakers include: auto supply workers, auto dealers and workers from the bus tour as well as Tom Conway, United Steelworkers international vice-president; Scott Paul, Alliance for American Manufacturing executive director; Mayor Virg Bernero (Lansing, MI); City Manager Peter Auger (Auburn Hills, MI); Mayor Kevin Wixom (Hinkley, MI); Mayor Carty Finkbeiner (Toledo, OH); Mayor Marlene Anielski (Walkton Hills, OH); Major Charles Brunner (Bay City, MI); Mayor Katherine Procop (Twinsburg, OH).

Leo W. Gerard, USW international president said, “Traveling around the country last week, we heard from laid-off people in Fort Wayne, Indiana, who desperately want to go back to work making auto parts. They are angry that their tax dollars might be used to export jobs. In Granite City, Illinois, a fourth-generation restaurant owner agonized over the thought that he may not be able to hand down his diner to his baby girl because local plant closings have hurt his business. All over the country workers on and off the assembly line are counting on our leaders to recognize that there’s much more at stake than profits. Saving the auto industry is about 7.2 million people, their families and their communities. Our teach-in aims to bring this message to Washington – that this is America’s fight, and a strong domestic auto industry matters to all of us.”

HAMTRAMCK, Mich. — Steelworkers union President Leo Gerard joined Lansing, Mich., Mayor Virg Bernero, members of Congress, actor Danny Glover and the Rev. Jesse Jackson here as the “Keep It Made In America Tour” rolled into Michigan this week.

The multi-city bus tour by workers, union leaders, city and state officials, car dealers and other local businesses, aims to mobilize working people in the fight to keep manufacturing jobs and rebuild a future for America’s heartland communities.

This is a “fight for middle class jobs and to rekindle the American dream,” Gerard told a May 11 rally in this epicenter of the auto crisis. “If we are silenced we will be crushed. If we don’t stand up and fight we will be crushed.”

The tour of 36 cities in 11 states is fighting back against Wall Street and corporations who want to outsource manufacturing and jobs, and crush the working class. Debbie Stabenow, one of Michigan’s two Democratic senators from Michigan, reflected that spirit, declaring, “We will not go under. It is time to stand up, and we will fight with you.”

Looking at the working class crowd gathered here, Bernero delivered a stinging indictment of Wall Street.

His city, Lansing, was formerly home to Cadillac and Oldsmobile manufacturing plants employing thousands in well-paid union jobs with health coverage and other basics of a decent life. The per capita income in the city is now under $18,000 and one in six residents lives below the official poverty line.

Wall Street does not see us as workers who worked all their lives to build America, the Lansing mayor said. Instead, Wall Street sees workers as costs that decrease profits and must be eliminated by outsourcing, slashing wages and benefits, and exporting our standard of living and the American dream. Outsourcing is the way capitalism works, Bernero said. Noting that it is considered all right for Wall Street to turn to the government for a bailout for a financial crisis they created, he said ironically, “Socialism is for Wall Street and capitalism is for us.”

The mayor concluded, “This battle is going to be won with the blood, sweet and tears of union workers.” Some say the unions have had their time, but “The union’s time is today,” he said. “We have to stand together. The labor movement will lead us out of this.”

Gerard noted that every country with a domestic auto industry has stepped up to help their auto industry, with conditions. France gave $9 billion with the condition that the industry cannot close any plants and must expand domestic production. But such demands have not been placed on American auto companies or banks that have taken bailout loans, Gerard said.

Manufacturing is central to the country’s future, speakers said. A viable economy cannot be solely based on the service sector. The opportunities to rebuild manufacturing in the U.S. are great, many said. We can make wind turbine parts, Stabenow said, “keep it American and build it right here in Michigan.” Michigan Congressman Sander Levin called for electric vehicles and batteries to be built in Michigan.

To keep manufacturing in America, we must “change this rotten system” that Wall Street has created, said another Michigan Democrat, Rep. John Conyers. We need an “economic system that puts everyone to work,” Conyers said. He proposed a new full-employment act similar to the 1978 Humphrey Hawkins Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act to retrain workers and create jobs to get the economy moving. “What we need now is a full employment stimulus,” the veteran lawmaker said.

This was not a rally to bash workers in other countries. “They did not take jobs from us,” the Rev. Jesse Jackson said. “Corporations took jobs to them and chose cheap labor over organized labor.”

Underscoring that this was a rally to demand jobs, keep manufacturing in America, and strengthen worker rights and economic rights, Jackson said we must “save the worker,” and “stimulate the economy from the bottom up.”

He called for a “level playing field, free and fair trade, and a moratorium on foreclosures and plant closings,” and for “reinvesting in American manufacturing.”

Actor and activist Danny Glover urged collective action, saying we must be the “architect of our own rescue.” Paraphrasing India’s Gandhi, Glover declared, “We are going to be the world we want to create.” It is a world without violence and war, and a sustainable economy that provides full employment, and universal health care, he said.

While many of her family members have a strong work ethic, the fact that they have consistently produced quality products has not saved them from an uncertain future. And while Anna says her family is loyal and dedicated to the auto industry, the reverse has not always been true.

When asked if there hope for a turnaround in the economic survival of the auto industry, Anna Marie just says simply, “All we’ve got is hope.”