Ford Auto Workers Weigh Buyout Options

Rob Williams smiles at the Final Score Lounge in Brownstown Township, Mich., Friday, Dec. 15, 2006. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) (Paul Sancya - AP)

She's planning short-term and long-term investments for her money, but she's afraid some co-workers taking the buyout are going to spend every penny and be broke by next year.

Not her. Her $27 an hour salary on its way out, she's moved from a $1,200-a month apartment in suburban Southfield to a $700 apartment in Detroit. She has no home phone, no cable, she's stopped shopping for everything but necessities, she no longer eats at restaurants and she's bartending nights.

Asked at the end of a long conversation if there's anything else she wants to say, she says, "Thank you. Thank you, Ford, for helping me raise my daughters, making it possible as a single parent. I don't want them to think I didn't appreciate the time. Without them, I couldn't have done a lot of the things I did for my daughters, or my family."

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RUNNING THE NUMBERS

Rob Williams, a tool and die worker with 10 years at Ford, is 35, with plenty of friends who took the buyout.

One started his own real estate company. Another is starting a butcher shop, specializing in deer killed by local hunters. One changes his plan daily, from hauling boats to giving tours of Lake Michigan.

"One of my buddies took the first round _ she's lying around the couch all day, doing nothing," he said.

The buyout is a gift for workers near retirement, who can leave with pension payments and health insurance. Some friends are retiring to Arizona, some to Florida.

Like everyone else far from retirement, he now views his future like a math story problem, with too many variables to solve.

There are about 140 tool and die workers at the plant, he said, and about 40 are eligible to retire. But, in seniority, he's third from the bottom.

If his plant, Woodhaven Stamping, stays open, workers from closed plants who have more seniority are free to work at Woodhaven if they choose, "bumping" workers there. Then he'd be unemployed, with no buyout cash to cushion him. But he'd get unemployment benefits.

He looked at jobs elsewhere, put in three applications out of state and heard nothing. There were a couple places in Tennessee looking for tool and die workers, but they were Toyota suppliers and can barely bring himself to say the word "Toyota." He didn't apply.

So he's staying. A conversation with his uncle, a recently retired Ford tool and die maker who rode out the downturn in the 1980s, helped him make the decision.

"He said, 'Don't you dare.'"