Friday, November 26, 2010

Really?

Here's something you don't hear every day, or year, or decade...

G.M. to rehire Flint workers.



6 comments:

  1. Dave - still in FlintNovember 27, 2010 at 6:48 AM

    Good news for some friends that still work at the old Buick site. maybe they'll still have jobs. That said, it's sad to see the site where I spent 40 years closing & being demolished.

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  2. Did you see my post about me seeing that exact phrase come across a news monitor in a midtown Manhattan elevator? I almost fell on the floor.

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  3. Just saw it, Shawn. I was a little shocked myself. Thought it was a typo. Dave, I still feel disoriented when I drive down Hamilton now. Just can't get my bearings.

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  4. I like the "disoriented" comment from our host. It best describes my feelings every time I visit old Flint haunts. Going down Third Ave and looking north to Hurly; who knew it was that close. And yes, starting at Haskell, traveling east on Hamilton Ave is a whole different experience. The Flint I care about lives only in my head.

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  5. I grew up on the Southwest corner of the city, and even though I occasionally got up by Buick and the North end of town, it was rare. I never got to the Mikatam or Angelo's. I did get to the Fifth Avenue Grill a few times when Sears used to be near there. I spent decades within a half mile of the city limits. Outside the city limits, things don't seem that much different. Not much growth but stable. Is that your perception also?

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  6. In recent days, GM has added a shift in Oshawa, jobs in Lansing, 100+ jobs in Flint, a few jobs in Ohio and Bay City, 1000 engineering jobs in Warren. They don't seem to have gotten the message that auto jobs will never come back.

    If and when the auto industry returns to 15 million unit years to deal with the accumulated 12 to 14 million unit deficit in the historical replacement rate, GM will need a bunch of people and third shifts all over the place.

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.