:13:00
How about all the jobs here in Flint?
:13:03
It could feasibly happen.
:13:05
Good evening, I'm Sue Zelenko.
Bill Harris has the night off.
:13:08
It was where the UAW was born.
:13:10
Tonight 3,000 people are trying to decide
what to do with their lives.
:13:14
Nobody was ready for the announced
plant shutdowns today...
:13:17
least of all, the 1,350 workers.
:13:18
The last truck chassis headed
down the line this morning.
:13:20
Virtually all the 3,400 people are on layoff.
:13:23
Larry Elliot was at the plant today...
:13:25
as that last car was making its way
down the assembly line.
:13:28
Will this plant build engines again
if the rush back to small cars occurs?
:13:32
The answer is no.
:13:34
In Flint, Joe Weaver,
Channel 2 Eyewitness News.
:13:37
More factories had closed...
:13:39
and I began to see the effect
this was having on my friends.
:13:41
Ben was the worker I'd put on the cover
of that magazine in San Francisco.
:13:46
He'd been laid off
five times in five years from GM.
:13:49
Expecting to be laid off again, he cracked
one night working on the assembly line.
:13:53
He was now shooting hoop
at the local mental health center.
:13:58
I couldn't take it. I told the guy next to me:
:14:00
''Tell the foreman I'm sick.
I don't give a shit what you tell him.''
:14:03
I grabbed my coat, flew out the door,
passed the guards...
:14:07
jumped into my car,
got onto Bristol Road...
:14:09
and was flying toward my apartment.
:14:12
I turned on the radio,
hoping that might cheer me up...
:14:14
I had tears coming out of my eyes...
:14:16
and I strike right into the middle
of Wouldn't It Be Nice by The Beach Boys.
:14:21
And I'm thinking, ''What a horrible song...
:14:24
''to have to hear
in the midst of this panic attack.''
:14:26
A song that I'd usually
get a groove going with.
:14:31
I'm trying to sing the lyrics,
and I've got an apple in my throat.
:14:40
I'm trying to rationalize with those lyrics...
:14:42
trying to think, ''Wouldn't it be nice? ''
And it just wasn't working.