Michigan's future to hinge on union contracts

About half of Ford's U.S. hourly work force agreed to buyouts.
DETROIT (AP) -- Scott Swiercz smoked a cigarette and drank a beer at The Final Score lounge, mulling the biggest gamble of his life.
Ford Motor had offered him and its 75,000 other U.S. hourly workers a choice of buyout packages. One option: a 100,000 lump sum payment to completely sever his relationship with Ford. Taking the money would mean no job and no health care. For Swiercz, 40, who has two ex-wives and pays 157.50 each week in child support for his 14-year-old son, taking the buyout would be the equivalent of a third divorce. The math just didn't work.
The cheapest health insurance he found cost 450 a month. With child support, he'd pay 1,080 each month before he paid rent or put gas in the car.
Like all hourly workers, he had to make a decision by Nov. 27. He chose to stay on the production line at Ford's Woodhaven Stamping Plant, where he's weeks away from hitting 11 years' seniority.
The decision feels "100 percent" like a gamble, he said.
He's gambling that the plant will stay open. He's gambling that, if it does, enough workers will take buyouts so Ford can avoid layoffs there. He's gambling that a worker from a closing plant who has more seniority won't bump him off the job.
The numbers
Some 38,000 Ford workers -- roughly half of Ford's U.S. hourly work force -- said they would take one of Ford's eight buyout packages. Workers can rescind their acceptance until their last day of work. Those who do go will start leaving the company in January; the rest will be gone by September.
The workers who are staying are every bit as nervous as those starting over.
The Woodhaven plant still runs three shifts, including a midnight crew of machinists who tend to equipment that dates back to the end of World War II. Workers there got good news the Friday before Christmas, when Ford said it would be one of six plants where the company plans to invest a total of 1 billion, in exchange for 151 million in tax incentives from the state.
Hard times at Ford, General Motors, DaimlerChrysler and their suppliers mean hard times for Michigan, where all three are based and where the auto industry dominates the economy. The state is on track to lose 336,000 jobs between mid-2000 and the end of 2006, the longest stretch of job losses since the Great Depression.
What's next?
Contracts expire between the United Auto Workers and the Big Three in 2007, and some argue union concessions are the only way the Big Three can compete with Toyota Motor and Honda Motor.
Unionized auto jobs dominate the state's economy, said Donald Grimes, an economist at the University of Michigan's Institute for Labor and Industrial Relations.
"Nothing is going to overshadow those auto contract negotiations," he said. "That determines Michigan's future."
He added, "If people realized how generous the labor agreements were, I think they'd be astounded."
Auto workers, who can make 60,000 a year without overtime, and more than 100,000 with it, "know they're never going to make this kind of money again," said Denise Brooks, who has worked for 131/2 years at the Brownstown Ford plant.