National & International

90.3 WBHM | Undated -- It's now a familiar scene in Alabama: the announcement of a major automobile manufacturer that will construct a plant to build engines or cars or parts for those engines or cars.

Honda Manufacturing Plant in Lincoln Or, maybe the introduction of a new product out of one of those plants.

At Honda plant, announcer says "Ladies and gentlemen, we are proud to welcome to Alabama, the Honda Pilot..."

Late last year with all the media and many Alabama and Honda dignitaries looking on Governor Bob Riley flipped a switch, and the covers came blowing off to unveil another shiny, colorful example of ten years of automotive history in this state.

He is, after all, Alabama's top economic cheerleader. And as such, he got an up-close look at the new SUV that will be produced at the Honda plant in Lincoln. His smile and gaze of fascination revealed his revelry in it all.

Gov. Riley gets an up-close look "It's got a DVD player, 4-wheel drive; it's a beautiful vehicle..."

Of course the Governor was smiling. He's well aware that for every new vehicle that rolls off the assembly line in Alabama, there are people who stand along that line and will take home a healthy paycheck.

And he knows what the rest of those employees at Honda know... that not-too-long ago, none of it was happening.

"In 1995, there wasn't a single automobile that was produced in Alabama. Today, ladies and gentlemen, in less than ten years, there's over 800,000 being produced. This is incredible. And it's all because of your dedication and because of your hard work.

According to the Alabama Automobile Manufacturers Association, in 2002, automobile manufacturing was made up of more than 30- thousand direct jobs and about 53-thousand indirect jobs those that do business with suppliers or the auto plants themselves. And those numbers don't reflect expansions going on or another plant that will come online next year Hyundai in Montgomery and the dozens of auto suppliers in the state.

Neal Wade is the Director of the state of Alabama Development Office.

"We wouldn't have the economy and the good situation we have in the state, We would be in a much worse situation if we did not have what's happened here from automotive. We're going to grow this industry unbelievably."

Wade says with its upward momentum, it's hard to believe the automobile industry in Alabama only dates back to 1993. That year, a team from Mercedes-Benz was looking for its first passenger automobile plant outside Germany and Alabama was on a broad list of 30 states.

Linda Sewell "I don't think any of us on the team took it seriously."

Linda Sewell, who is now Mercedes Director of Communications, was in on the search.

"It kept popping up with all of these strengths ... ways of doing business and quality of life and when we finally came to Alabama as one of our final six states to look at it firsthand, we were all so impressed. Because it was either an unknown to us or we had the stereotypes."

The German-automaker chose Alabama for its sprawling 1.2 million square foot manufacturing plant between Tuscaloosa and Birmingham in tiny Vance.

Dr. Carl Ferguson is Executive Director of the University of Alabama Center for Business and Economic Research.

Mercedes assembly line "...what they saw was a good plant site, a strong labor force, good transportation corridors for in-bound logistics and ways to get the product out into the world."

...in addition to a 250 million dollar tax incentive package that included infrastructure improvements and a training center. More than 80-thousand of those products various M-class sport utility vehicles are made in this plant every year.

You can't tell by walking through because assembly work continues just like any other day, but the plant is expanding and in the next year will add another 16-hundred jobs to the 24-hundred already there.

Thomas Kirby of Cottondale is one of thousands who bought one of those M-class SUVs. But Kirby has an even stronger tie to his. As an inspector at the Mercedes plant, he helped build it.

"Makes you feel good knowning that you work for a company that's number one in quality. Back home, I never would've been able to drive a Mercedes-Benz probably ever, working two jobs, just barely making ends meet. No way. No way."

Kirby's been at Mercedes since production began there seven years ago. But before that, he made tablecloths at a textile plant in Madison west of Huntsville pulling in one fifth of what he's making today. And apparently, he got out just in time. While he and other automakers in Alabama are pulling in anywhere from 14 and 25 dollars an hour, his former co-workers in the textile industry are stitching their way to unemployment.

Dowling textile plant At the Dowling Industries plant in tiny Clio in Barbour County -- 50 miles southeast of Montgomery, Shirley Graham demonstrates how fast she can sew an elastic waistband around a pair of hospital pants.

"and that's what I do."

Graham and her husband were two of 96 workers mostly women who stretched and sewed more than 40-thousand hospital gowns a week out of this old-schoolhouse-turned-factory. But the company that owns Dowling announced it would shut the factory down and late last month it did, idling all those employees and sending the work to Mexico, the Caribbean or maybe even to China. Workers in those countries get pennies on the dollar compared to American workers.

Shirley Graham "I have worked as many as 60 hours over here. And what am I getting out of it? Unemployment. We got two cars to pay for, we owe a little over a year on. (edit) And has this company got any feelings for us and sending our work over there? Uh uh.. All they're thinking about is their pocketbook, they're not thinking about us over here looking for a job. They got a job."

But if any of those workers winds up back in the textile industry, Dr. Carl Ferguson says chances are it's only for the short term. Because of the bottom line, those jobs will likely continue to go away.

"...the manufacturer that's providing the apparels wants to pay the lowest price they can because labor is a significant cost of the finished good. And so the manufacturer is going to seek to push wages down and the American worker is not going to want for what workers in third-world nations are going to be willing to work for."

Shirley Graham says she might do alterations out of her house or go to work at a plant nursery. Some of the other employees are looking for jobs at the Wal-Mart Distribution center in nearby Brundidge or the Van Heusen clothing plant in Ozark. And only a handful mentioned they would try for a job in the automotive industry, at the new Hyundai plant going up in Montgomery. But that would require moving, which they didn't want to do.

That textile-turned-automaker, Thomas Kirby, is all-too-familiar with the dilemma.

"They still want to stay back in their homes, where they'd grown up all their life. And they're just afraid of change, and when I talk to my people back home, I let them know, it's Ok to change, especially when you know you're going to be able to do better than what you're doing now. Especially when you know that business is on its way out."

He says he was ambivalent about making a career change because he thought he wasn't ready for the automotive industry.

"The great thing about it, you don't have to worry about not knowing how to build a car because all the training that the corporation has set up, all the training they give, there's no reason why you can't learn how to build a car."

Again, Dr. Carl Ferguson.

Dr. Carl Ferguson "Our competitive advantage today is in our capacity to learn and our capacity to provide well-educated workers to accomplish very complex and demanding transformation tasks whether it's in the manufacturing of automobiles, rocket parts, high-tech electronics, biomedical chemicals, etc."

...and what's left for Alabamians losing their textile work, the Shirley Grahams of the state? The job of retraining, moving or just finding a way to survive in an economy that's not cheap in labor or in life.

For those people, Thomas Kirby has three words:

"Apply apply apply. Don't say I'm not good enough to get a job, just say 'why not me?'"

~Steve Chiotakis, February 9, 2004

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