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.”

But refuses to give up on the auto industry and says that she will work hard in her union to ensure a better future. Watch her story.

A member of the United Steel Workers for 15 years, Lilienfield is currently the Rapid Response Coordinator for USW District 13. While his role is to help educate USW’s membership about upcoming legislation that would help steel workers and the auto industry, Ben also tries to mobilize the membership into actions such as letter writing campaigns and attending rallies.

But because of the dire economic conditions and the difficulty people are having trying to find a job, Ben says that it has been harder to find and retain activists.

People are no longer calling him up to say “Hey, what can I do to help?” or “What can I do to help keep jobs in America?” Instead, Ben is hearing over and over, “Do you know anything about jobs? Where can I find a job?”

The company makes aluminum from raw materials and while there are 800 people, most employees who work with him are on an hourly rate.

Noranda plant supplied aluminum for the auto industry and while management has threatened lay-offs for quite some time, nothing had happened. But then an unexpected thing happened: an ice storm shut down the plant and is power, interrupting its production.

When power was restored, the plant resumed only 25 percent of its output capacity. Because the economy is so bad and the price of aluminum so low, it is not certain if Noranda will be back to 100 percent any time soon. And that means trouble.

Today, even with 33 years seniority, Erwin has no sense of job security. Unless the demand for aluminum gets stronger, everything is up in the air.

While Erwin doesn’t know what he will do if his plan were to shut down, he is taking precautions. He’s altered his lifestyle and become more conscious of his spending.

And while he may be frustrated at the plant’s management, his company did allow him and several of his co-workers to come to the Cape Girardeau whistle stop for the Keep it Made in America Tour and not lose any pay. And for that he is grateful.

Mary worked as an injury prevention technician at a local hospital until December 2008, when the grant money that funded her position dried up and she was let go. She sees her lost job as a victim of the manufacturing jobs losses happening around the country.

And while Mary is thankful that her husband still has a job as a firefighter, he could be next. Though he’s been working in Bay City for more than 20 years, Mary says that if the local Powertrain plant fails, his job could be on the chopping block next.

Mike Beattie’s dad started in the parts department at Dunlop in 1941. He served in WWII, then returned to the dealership and eventually partnered with Mr. Dunlop the owner in 1950.

“It is totally devastating,” said Mike, now the General Manager of Dunlop. “Our dealership will be closing after 85 years of serving the community.”

Now that the Pontiac’s been eliminated, Dunlop’s 27 jobs will be lost.

“Twenty seven families will be losing their providers,” Mike said.

As for Mike, “I have no idea what I’m going to do.”

View a slide show of Dunlop Pontiac in the 1960’s.

For years, Williams worked to prep the exhibits at the Chicago Auto Show.

“It was getting bigger and bigger,” he says, but the past year was different.

“Usually, the show business is continuous all year. This year, January, people were running out on their unemployment because they hadn’t worked since like, September because all the shows were so down.”

Williams was able to retire under “Rule of 85″ under the Steelworkers’ agreement that provides for early retirement when an employee’s age and years of service add up to 85. Now he lives in Justice, Illinois, where he stays active with the union through SOAR, the Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees, and is also working to urge the village of Justice to pass a resolution to buy all American products.

By joining AAM’s bus caravan through Indiana and Ohio this week, Williams is also working to spread the message of how severe the problems could get if more American jobs are lost. During the bus tour’s first stop and rally outside the Radisson Hotel in Merrillville, Indiana, Monday, Williams collected 11 pages of signatures, nearly 150 signatures, on the petition for Auto Supply Chain jobs.

“We lose the people who make the parts, then we lose the people who make the tires, right on down the line, and I’m volunteering to educate the common person on this, that we have to help out our auto workers and our auto parts manufacturers.”

Humphrey thought she had found a new start when she was hired at the Chrysler truck plant in Fenton, but her job there only lasted two weeks before she was laid off again.

The mother of three children, two in high-school and the youngest just nine, Humphrey gets nervous when she thinks about how she is going to pay the bills. And while she hopes that the layoff at the truck plant might be temporary, she’s not sure. Between now and June 30th Chrysler will go through a re-structuring and Humphrey hopes that after that time she might be called back to the plant to work.

But that job would soon disappear; it would only be to help Chrysler prepare to shut down that plant too in October 2009.

Humphrey doesn’t know what else to do. She holds out hope that at least in the near future she’ll get a few more weeks of work at the Chrysler truck plant.

But after that? Who knows?

As Verna Wilson and Robert Cuthrell stood side-by-side at a rally in Pontiac, Michigan, they shared the same concern: Would their pensions be safe?

Robert Cuthrell worked at the GMC Orion plant for 32 years. He started on the assembly line and retired in 1993.Verna Wilson’s husband worked at the same plant as Cuthrell. Now a widow, Wilson relies on the pension her husband earned at the Orion plant, and she can’t afford to lose it.

“I worry about it–that I won’t be able to support myself,” says Wilson. “I don’t know where I’d go or what I’d do [if I lost it.]”

Wilson is also supporting her 24-year-old grandson who recently lost his job at a furniture store, another victim of Michigan’s sagging economy. And there are many others. Both of her next door neighbors are unemployed, and one just had his car repossessed.

As he stood at the rally, Cuthrell summed it up the problem this way: “People can’t get loans, can’t buy cars, can’t make house payments.”

“I don’t want to be there the day it closes,” Orbacki says, as he attends a rally for the “Keep it Made in America” bus tour.

Orbacki supports his wife and 15-year-old daughter and he’s worried about their future. Will he be able to pay for college? Will his daughter be able to get a job?

Even though his plant has only been open for six weeks this year, Orbacki refuses to give in, saying that he hopes to return to work in June.

“It’s not over till it’s over,” he says. “I’m not giving up . . . We didn’t create this bankruptcy mess, but we’d like to help Chrysler get out of it.”