The economy of Greenville, Mich., will be devastated when a big refrigerator factory moves to Mexico. Now residents here are getting ready to express their fear and anger at the polls.
The big election-year question for voters in this charming little town of 8,000 in north central Michigan was posed last year -- on Oct. 21, to be exact. That's when Electrolux announced that it would close the refrigerator factory that had been the mainstay of the local economy since 1877 and move its operations to Mexico. As a result, most of the plant's 2,700 workers would lose their jobs.
Until then, many local Democrats had been focused on the war in Iraq and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, explains the Rev. Vince Lavieri, chair of the Montcalm County Democratic Party. But after the announcement, that changed, Lavieri says. "Everyone began thinking: Where am I going to find work?"
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For many, the fear of joining the 44 million Americans without health insurance is even more frightening than the prospect of trying to earn a living by working part-time at the local Meijer superstore. At least Meijer's workforce is unionized. But even that option is growing less secure. The company is laying off employees and preparing for competition from a new, nonunion, low-wage Wal-Mart coming to Greenville.
"The biggest fear people have isn't terrorists," says Don Pellow, a full-bearded, burly former president of the main United Auto Workers union local at the Electrolux plant. "The terror is that they won't have medical care, not getting blown up in a taxi by an Iraqi."
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http://salon.com/news/feature/2004/02/07/michigan/index.html
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