First Person: A Domino Effect of Success -- and Failure -- in Ohio's Auto Industry

Ohio, a historically Republican-leaning state that's trending toward President Obama, is heavily reliant on the automotive industry. About 12 percent of the state's labor force is linked to car production. As Election Day nears, Yahoo News asked Ohioans who depend on the industry to share their thoughts on the bailouts and the election. Here's one perspective.

FIRST PERSON | Four years ago, when the auto industry started to sink, my family became aware that our way of life was in serious jeopardy.

I've lived in central Ohio for nearly all my 30 years and my entire life has revolved around the Honda automotive plant in Marysville (MAP). My dad was one of the first 500 Americans hired when the plant was build 30 years ago; he met my step-mom there, and he bribed me into working there for three summers while I was in college. It's where I met my husband of seven years.

During many of those years, I hardly saw my parents or my husband because of the overtime and production Saturdays; sure I complained about losing out on time with my family, but I was also thankful they had stable jobs.

But in 2007 and 2008, things started to go badly for The Big Three in Detroit, auto sales decreased across the board and parts suppliers were closing their doors.

Honda tried to weather the storm, but in the end cuts had to be made. In order to protect the plants and the full-time associates, Honda reduced production to one assembly line, laid off all the temporary workers, reduced production to three days a week, and finally offered one of the largest buyouts in the history of the company to all associates who were willing to take it.

Thanks to these measures, my family was able to keep their jobs unlike many others in the same industry.

During this down time, I worried whether my husband would have a job the next week, the next month, or the next year. Every day I would hear politicians refusing to help the struggling GM and Chrysler, granted they were just as much at fault as the banks and Wall Street for their decline, preferring instead for the private sector to step in and take care of it.

But these same politicians were willing to help banks and lenders -- who didn't make anything tangible -- over companies that made a physical product. I was also astonished at how narrowed-minded these people were. They seemed to believe that by letting GM and Chrysler go bankrupt, it would only affect GM and Chrysler. What they failed to notice is that all auto manufacturers in the United States are tied together by the same suppliers and supply chains. If one link fails, the whole chain collapses.

With the auto bailout and the cash for clunkers program, the auto industry as a whole started to turn around. It forced auto manufacturers to adopt a more streamlined business model that called for fewer car models and better quality.

Four years later, production is thriving at Honda and my family is back working overtime and production Saturdays. So when conservative politicians ask if my family is better off now under Obama than we were four years ago, I can answer with an emphatic "yes" because manufacturing is slowly coming back to Ohio and the strength of the Honda brand encourages other companies to invest in our state and its citizens.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/first-person-domino-effect-success-failure-ohios-auto-173100889.html

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