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When the last Ranger pickup truck rolled
off the assembly line at the Ford Motor Co. plant here in December,
it came five years after Ford announced plans to close the plant.
And yet it managed to catch many employees unprepared for life's
next step.


      It's a theme that's become all too familiar for union leaders at
shuttered plants around the country who have watched workers cling
too long to high-paying jobs.


      For Travis Johnston, 36, of River Falls, Wis., it made sense to
ride with Ford as long as he could. He often worked more than 50
hours a week for $28 an hour plus overtime, leaving him exhausted
and with little incentive to find a job that would almost certainly
pay less. After 11 years with Ford, he only recently updated his
resume and began looking for another job.


      "Honestly, the biggest part of it is the pay," he said.


      In 2006, Ford announced it would shut down the plant and offered
its employees buyouts. Then the company brought back hundreds of
workers under special terms and kept the plant running.


      "We kept getting these extensions," Johnston said. "When we
didn't get it (this summer), it really started to sink in."


      The plant had about 1,800 hourly workers in 2006. In 2007, the
state's dislocated worker program started signing up employees,
helping them write resumes, network and sharpen their interviewing
skills, while acting as a gateway to subsidized job training.


      State figures show 1,050 employees enrolled and more than 300
finished. Of those who finished, 90 percent got jobs and 96 percent
of them were still employed six months later. Forty-six percent of
those who finished earned a diploma or professional certificate
through the program's training benefits.


      Anthony Alongi, director of Minnesota Department of Employment
and Economic Development's dislocated worker program, said such
programs never get all employees in a mass layoff. Many transfer to
other plants, he said, some retire, others get jobs on their own,
and some simply refuse to seek help.


      He said more workers might have completed the program if Ford
hadn't granted so many extensions keeping the plant open.


      "If you were a Ford worker, you could be forgiven for thinking
that maybe it would stay open a little bit longer," he said.


      Wayne Young, supervisor of the dislocated worker program for
Ramsey County, which contracts with the state to provide services
to the workers, said the number of Ford workers who showed up for
registration events spiked as the final closing date neared.


      "It's not unusual for people in large-scale layoff situations
to be a bit in denial that it's ending," he said. "I kind of got
that feeling from the folks we have been seeing on the past couple
of registrations."


      Ford spokeswoman Marcey Evans said about two-thirds of the 800
employees can transfer to other Ford locations, including assembly
plants in Chicago and Louisville, Ky. Employees who took a $100,000
lump-sum buyout in 2006 cannot transfer, a restriction that affects
Johnston and many other senior workers.

      Greg Audette, who worked at the plant for 20 years, said he now
regrets taking the money.


      "If I had known it would be like this, I never would have taken
the buyout," he said. "I would be transferring now."


      Instead, he said as he walked out of the plant and into the cold
as the plant closed, he was going to start looking for work.


      "I guess I'll go look for job, take some time off, figure it
out," Audette said.


      It was a similar situation when Chrysler shut down its assembly
plant in Newark, Del., in 2008, said Richard McDonaugh Jr., former
president of the local autoworker's union. More than 1,000 workers
lost their jobs and only a few of them could transfer to other
Chrysler plants. Many who didn't take advantage of job training
programs are still looking for work, he said.


      "The economy is going down the toilet and they are going down
with it," said McDonaugh, who now works for the Delaware
Department of Labor enforcing labor laws. Several families have
broken up because of the stress, he said, and at least two former
employees have committed suicide.


      At Ford's St. Paul plant, Sylvia Rutledge was one of the workers
who took advantage of everything the state and company offered. A
few days before the plant closed, she had plans A, B, C "and C½
and D," she said. "If one plan falls through, I've got another to
fall back on."


      Rutledge passed up the $100,000 buyout and picked a Ford
severance program that paid for college tuition. She used it to get
a medical assistant's degree, studying on a laptop during breaks
when she was called back to work. She figures she's only a year of
study away from earning a nursing degree.


      Once her daughter graduates from high school in the spring, she
might try for a transfer to the medical department at Ford's
Louisville plant, work as a medical assistant or go back to school
to finish her nursing degree.


      "I got a few options," she said. "That's what everybody
should have done because we've been knowing about this for five
years. I don't plan on being caught unaware."

Gallery

Mayor Chris Coleman on the closing of the Ford plant

Last truck rolls off St. Paul Ford plant's assembly line

End of historic line, as last Ford Ranger rolls from plant in St. Paul

Business and Economic News

Chris Williams

Author

Ford announced it would close its St. Paul assembly plant in 2006, but when the fateful day arrived last month, many of the 800 workers there still didn't have a plan for their next job.

As Ford plant waned, many workers slow to prepare

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