Sad day in Atlanta

[Stick]

Friday, October 27, 2006, a few thousand people watched their last job roll down the line andwhen it passed their work area they picked up their stuff and walked out the door for the last time and the Ford Motor Company, Atlanta Assembly Plant went out of the business of building automobiles.

Mom always said "Pride stinks" but I was proud of what I was a part of in the car company. In 1994 I was transfered from Cleveland Engine Plant #1 to Atlanta to bring a process that we had put in place in Cleveland to Atlanta and that process was so good that it had gone Ford, worldwide. The company said on many occasions that if a plant didn't have the TPM, total productive maintanence, total productive management process in place, that plant would NOT get new work. Yesterday Ford made good on that promise in Atlanta.

Two years after I walked into the plant here I was told by the Assistant Plant Manager "Nobody, but nobody is going to come down here from the north and tell Atlanta how to run their business. We've been running this way since 1947 and we're not going to change now"and that is a verbatim quote that I remember vividly to this day and the dayhe said that to me was the last day that I worked for the car company.

Atlanta today has more than three thousand good people looking for a job that until yesterday were proud of the job that they did and had (past-tense) and "Pride stinks" doncha know.

[reconeil]

Guess that's what some big companies stupidly call: "Progress"?

Still,...that ANY plant manager would be so prideful of doing
things similarly as done back in 1947 (almost 60 years ago),...
is truly quite lame and does boggle the mind.

Though, that Lame-O will probably end up being The CEO of Ford?
Will most likely also insist company be run with abacuses
instead of computers,........don't you think?

Neil

[WateringHole]

That's the same thing that's happening to all our manufacturing jobs. Why should Ford, General Motors, Chrysler pay somebody at one of their plants in the USA twenty five dollars an hour when they can get Julio, Pepe, and Poncho in Honduras to do the same job for twenty cents an hour.

[Bill Farnie]

I think this has less to do with TPM, or whatever, and more to do with Ford?s profits. Sales suck for Ford and what the auto makers have faithfully done in the USA is close plants when sales are down. It?s the same with any company in the USA when sales are down and thus profits. Especially when the company is a public company traded on one or more of the world?s stock markets and there are board members and share holders not making money. It?s all about money and unfortunately it?s the blue collar workers who suffer. So much for middle class America.

It's is indeed a sad day for Atlanta and my heart goes out to those workers and their families. I've been there and know what it's like.

[SEATJERKER]

...

...You, and I have had hours of conversation of this very same subject, and the why, and and what's have gone exactly where they are, Ford, 5.8 billion $ loss, GM, Chrysler, all the big three have had their American customer base "cheapened out from under them, I agree with Ron, and what was once the American foresight of faith in sticking with your own makes, and models,...

...Those dedicated Americans that have sought the reliabilities in Non American products do pay for it down the line with the 2nd owner syndrome of much higher costs on parts, and labor, overall operating costs actually take more to operate, blah, blah, now...

...give me a General massacre, or a Ford any day, I'' be able to fix it anywhere in the field when the need arises,...

...

[39mto39g]

Stick
That spell check button should be used

transfered I guess you ment transferred
maintanence I guess you ment maintenance

And doncha ?

If you would first type in Word there would be a little red line under the miss spelled words and Grammar errors.

39mto39g

[Gimpy]

The first home me and my wife Jackie ever bought was in Hapeville just off Stewart Avenue in 1970 about a year or so after I was discharged from Uncle Sams' Army.

My first born son, Curtis....was born while we lived there in June 1970 and my daughter Stephanie later in 1973.

The Ford Plant was actually in the city of Hapeville, and not Atlanta even though many folks called it the Atlanta Ford Plant.

It was for more than 60 years the life blood of that little community. I grew up in southwest Atlanta and went to school, and went into the service with many a young man who served with me in Vietnam that were from that area. I still have many family and friends in that town that either worked for the Ford Plant or surrounding businesses that depended on that plant for their very survival.

The old "Dwarf House" restaurant where Truett Kathy began his "ChickFilla" fast food mega-chain is still there on main street just across the railroad tracks from the ford plant. The plants employees were the first americans to ever taste his wonderful sandwich in the 1950's. I had my first one in 1962 in my junior year of high school after my old high school (Walter F. George) beat Hapeville high school in football 35 to 14. Me and a bunch of my teamates drove over to the "Dwarf House" in Hapeville after the game to rub it in to the Hapeville fans who always went there after their friday night games. We were lucky to get out of there alive. Those fans sure loved their old "Hapeville Hornets" as they were called.

I guess the old "Thomas Fine Country Cooking" restaurant, "Chapmans Drug" store (who had the best limeaid frosty they were famous for) and the small mom and pop stores businesses on Main street and along Stewart Avenue that depended on the Ford plant will now be forced out of operation.

I try and go by my little ole former home town everytime we go back to Atlanta to see my kids and grandkids. Two of my best buddies I served with in Nam, Jimmy H. and Larry I., still live there and every now and then we meet at the Dwarf House for a "Hot Brown" or "ChickFilla" sandwich for lunch along side the workers from the old Ford plant.

Guess we'll have a lot less folks eating with us now when we go there.

Sad is the word alright.

[Robert Ryan]

Yup. Nothing like a bunch of people losing their jobs in the name of progress. Just love it.

[locksly]

Yup. Nothing like a bunch of people losing their jobs in the name of progress. Just love it.
Robert Ryan


But it is really a failure of American pride in our workmanship and in our hard working folks in the factorys of this nation.

[WateringHole]

Bill Farnie......When sales are down, instead of the Pres and members of the board of directors getting a half mill or more Christmas bonus, they'll have to somehow tolerate only getting about 300 K or so. Oh well, I guess they'll have to scratch a few charters off their Christmas list in order to sqeeze by. Also instead of going on a vacation to Greece, they'll have to settle for Cancun.

How will they ever survive all those sacrifices ?