It's not your father's auto industry anymore

[Guest Josh]

Ryan Daleo, a 28-year-old factory worker for Ford Motor Co., has the auto industry in his blood.

His great-grandfather, great-grandmother, both grandfathers and father worked the lines of Detroit area auto plants.

Don't tell his family about the virtues of a foreign car; they don't care for Toyotas or Nissans. Don't dare park one in their driveway; they'll ask you to move it.

Daleo, a Canton resident who grew up in Inkster and Garden City, said he was meant to work on cars and trucks. Five years ago, he started with Ford, where his great-grandfather first worked in the 1940s.

"I'm a gearhead," said Daleo, wearing blue jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt. "I'll tell you right now I'm not book smart. But if you give me something, I'll fix it and make it work."

People like Daleo, though, are fading fast in Michigan.

He said he's already thinking about the future for his daughters, ages 3 and 6. He wants them to go to college, something he did not do, so they can get better jobs and have more options.

"I don't want my kids working there," Daleo said. "I want them to ... do something different. I don't want them working there and going through what I'm going through."

Factory jobs getting cut

More than any other line of work in the auto industry, the landscape and job prospects have changed for blue-collar workers -- the people on the floor physically making the parts and piecing together the vehicles that consumers buy.

Their jobs are moving south or overseas. Their wages and benefits likely will take hits as companies cut costs.

For earlier generations, Detroit's auto industry helped to build a solid middle class based on these blue-collar jobs. Henry Ford set the tone in 1914 when he doubled the pay for workers at his Highland Park plant to $5 a day, convincing workers to take grueling, but high-paying, jobs in his factories.

Full: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article...9/1002/BUSINESS

[Ghost Dog]

It all began with trickle on economics. Then came the Horror of free trade. Then the destruction of the dollars value. Now it all has to stop!

[razoredge]

We need the government to do their job and look out for the vast population it owes its existance to. Not the few by contrast that are benefiting.

Just listen and obsorb

serve and protect

Hey who cares so long as there is 300,000 minimum wage jobs created.......it all sounds good.......dont it ?