Life After Carmaking

Displaced Atlanta Area Autoworkers to Put a New Economic Model to the Test

ATLANTA -- General Motors Corp. has announced plans to close a big minivan plant here sometime in the next two years, a decision that will cost 3,100 plant workers their jobs. But Vernon Jones, the chief executive of DeKalb County, still sees prosperity in the region's future.

Jones has his sights on the property for creation of "a whole new city" -- a mega-development with stores, offices, lofts and townhouses, and possibly even a performing arts center or a new soccer stadium. "It has the potential to triple the number of jobs that are being lost," he said.

Few American cities can absorb the loss of an auto plant, or two, quite like Atlanta. In addition to the GM site, Atlanta is losing a Ford Motor Co. car assembly plant that has 1,800 workers. The closings are part of the latest wave of downsizing in the American auto industry. GM and Ford are closing all or part of 26 plants over the next three years and cutting as many as 60,000 workers.

For the out-of-work, Atlanta provides prospects far outstripping the areas of the Midwest shattered by the auto industry's downturn. The Atlanta metro area's unemployment rate is 4.4 percent, compared with 7.6 percent in greater Detroit. The city is bolstered by its vibrant services sector, which has the potential to sweep in workers cast off by the decline in manufacturing. In its economic clout, Atlanta stands as a symbol of the transformation overtaking the American economy and illustrates the hope of thousands of blue-collar workers trying to adjust to a new landscape.

Still, even here, the transition from factory work is a precarious one. Workers are deeply anxious about leaving behind the factory world they know. With their plant skills, they are aware they might wind up as outcasts in the new services economy. And those who do succeed in making the shift face the hurdle of rebuilding their lives on salaries far below the $20 to $26 per hour they were earning on the assembly line.

Francis Elmore, one of the first women hired at the Ford plant back in the late 1970s, said she plans to take a $35,000 buyout package, retire and go to work part time in her daughter's law firm. "It's the best thing that ever happened to me," Elmore said.

Her co-worker, Willie McDonald, expects to take an even larger cash buyout, and the former Marine already has his sights on a new job with the Veterans Affairs Department once the plant closes later this year. "I'm one of the fortunate few. I've never been without a job in my life," he said.

Shane Gross is a 31-year-old second-generation Ford worker. His wife works at the plant, and this year they had their first child. Gross said he plans to return to college to finish a mechanical engineering degree. People inside the plant have mixed emotions, he said. "You see some people who are falling apart. Other people can't wait. We are looking at this as an opportunity to get out of Ford and get off the assembly line," he said.

Gross said he expects one day to make more money than he is earning at Ford. "Atlanta is quick. It's fast-growing. There's a lot of opportunity."

Economy of the Future?

In his 1989 documentary "Roger & Me," Michael Moore served up the unforgettable image of a downtrodden Flint, Mich., after a decade of downsizing by General Motors. Moore zeroed in on the eviction cops, the piles of garbage, abandoned blocks and the moving trucks heading out of town.

Atlanta has suffered plenty of hits itself. Delta Air Lines Inc., which is based here, is mired in bankruptcy proceedings. Three big military installations are closing, and corporate realignments have struck large Atlanta employers, including Georgia Pacific Corp., Scientific Atlanta Inc. and BellSouth Corp.

Still, while Flint held a powerful connection to America's industrial past, Atlanta looks more and more like the U.S. economy of the future.