The subject of jobs was the hallmark President Barack Obama message when he toured a Southeast Side Ford Motors plant Aug 5. and talked to some of the workers there.
The subject of jobs was the hallmark President Barack Obama message when he toured a Southeast Side Ford Motors plant Aug 5. and talked to some of the workers there. Ford Motors, which did not accept taxpayer bailout money last year when the auto industry nearly crumbled, announced that the plant at 126th Street and South Torrence Avenue would establish a second shift and up its manufacturing of the automaker’s Taurus and Explorer SUV models there. A modest crowd of employees –– some who’d been with the company for years, new hires and others who were recently rehired after being laid of when the economy first slumped – cheered Obama as he commended Ford for being able to “weather the storm without federal assistance” and took jabs at doubters. “There were a lot of folks who were ready to write off the American auto industry, who thought we should just have walked away from you,” Obama said on the assembly line floor turned presidential platform. “So I refused to walk away from this industry and American jobs.” In 2008 Congress approved the U.S. Treasury’s Trouble Asset Relief Program where the federal government helped giant corporations, including automakers, with financial bailouts. The president said that all three U.S. automakers – General Motors, Ford and Chrysler – were now operating at a profit, after nearly being wiped out two years ago. Earl Dukes worked 38 years with Ford before he retired in 2004. Dukes told the Defender that he put five kids through college as a result of his employment with the second largest automaker. He was at the plant last Thursday happy that his two grandchildren, who had been laid off from the plant, would be returning to work. “It’s gonna bring back some of the people that were laid off … And we need it. But now we need to change our attitudes about how we do it,” he told the said. We have to start working because see the old jobs that gone are not coming back. The times have changed. Technology has changed … we have to accept it and work with it and educate ourselves so we’ll be prepared to work when it does come time.” But as the president touted the auto industry’s comeback, officials noted that the overall employment state of affairs in the country and in Chicago’s African-American community in particular was not quite so upbeat. While nationally unemployment stands at 9.7 percent, according to labor statistics, within the African-American community it is predicted to be double-to-three times that number. It’s a condition that some say is at the root of rampant gun violence in the city and other national urban areas. “Not only do we have unemployed families, we have unemployed grandparents… parents who’ve never known a job, and now we have a new generation of youth that don’t know jobs. That’s just not joblessness, that’s chronic joblessness,” U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-2nd, told the Defender at the Ford plant. The congressman praised Ford for what he called a “21st century model that has the strongest possibility of putting Americans to work.” Jackson said that for every one job Ford and other automakers create, it has a 12-job multiplier effect. Obama previewed an Explorer model during his tour of the plant and drew rousing applause when he explained that Ford would be bringing on a second shift and 1,200 workers to build it. “That’s not just good for this plant … it’s good for the entire community, it’s good for the city, it’s good for the state,” the president said. Mayor Richard M. Daley is hopeful about the plant’s additional shift and increased manufacturing. “The recession hurt it and now it’s coming back,” Daley told the Defender, referring to the plant. He acknowledged that excitement around the plants production increase centered as much, if not more, on job creation than a rebounding auto industry. “This stimulates a lot of jobs. It brings all types of products in an out of here,” the mayor said of production at the plant. “It is the No. 1 issue in America is jobs. Doesn’t matter where you go, in the inner city, outside the city all over, people want jobs and that’s what the president’s trying to do.” As an added boost, Obama announced Thursday that the his administration was making a $250 million export-import bank loan guarantee for Ford to help the Detroit-based automaker export over 200,000 of its models overseas. The export, Obama said, means more U.S. jobs. Ford President, The Americas, Mark Fields told the Defender that the money Obama announced at the plant was in stark contrast to the taxpayer bailout cash Ford previously turned down. With the loan ¼– which has to be repaid in one year with interest, Fields said Ford would increase exports to Canada and Mexico. “And that means real jobs right here in America,” he explained. The president gave a rebuke to his critics as he offered spirited pep talk to Americans. “Don’t bet against the American worker. Don’t lose faith in the American industry. We are coming back,” Obama said. 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