NYT,pg1: For a G.M. Family, the American Dream Vanishes

[DeepModem Mom]

For a G.M. Family, the American Dream Vanishes
By DANNY HAKIM
Published: November 19, 2005


FLINT, Mich. - Four generations of the Roy family relied on General Motors for their prosperity.

Over more than seven decades, the company's wages bought the Roys homes, cars and once-unimaginable comforts, while G.M.'s enviable medical and pension benefits have kept them secure in their retirements.

But the G.M. that was once an unassailable symbol of the nation's industrial might is a shadow of its former self, and the post-World War II promise of blue-collar factory work being a secure path to the American dream has faded with it.

After a long slide, it now looks like the end of an era. "General Motors, when I got in there, it was like I'd died and went to heaven," said Jerry Roy, 49 - who started at G.M. in 1977 and now works on an assembly line at a plant operated by Delphi, the bankrupt former G.M. parts unit that was spun off in 1999.

When Mr. Roy was hired at G.M., nearly three decades ago, his salary more than doubled from his job at a local supermarket. He traded in his five-year-old Buick for a new Chevy and since then he has done well enough to buy a pleasant house on a lake near Flint....(N)ow he faces the prospect of either losing his job or accepting a sharp pay cut. And for those coming after him, "it's just sad that it's ending, that it looks like this," he said. In his hometown, he added, "all these places that used to be factories are now just parking lots."...


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/19/business/businessspecial2/19generations.html?pagewanted=all

[afdip]

1. the busheviks and their policies are outsourcing the entire

middle class.

[xchrom]

2. and this illustrates the fight of our age.