The Last Truck: Closing of a G.M. Plant

If you have HBO or even if you don’t, do yourself a favor and find a copy and watch the latest HBO documentary “The Last Truck: Closing of a G.M. Plant.” When news broke that the Moraine assembly plant, near Dayton, Ohio was closing, director Julia Reichert filmed the workers as their final days of making vehicles for GM approached. The director let the workers tell the story, and the effect is both touching and heartbreaking. Having worked in a factory for 28 years, the faces and stories of the workers seemed familiar to me. Their pride in their plant, their dedication to their work and their fears of an uncertain future are easy for any factory worker to relate to. Members of GMP Local #17 will recognize the ISO sign hanging outside the plant’s turnstiles, which look identical to the ones we use. If you work in a factory you know that not everyone can do factory work. It takes a certain type of determination and strength of character. To watch these union brothers and sisters dedicate their lives to putting out a superior product, only to be downsized in the midst of a government bailout, seems a particularly cruel irony. When Popeye, a toolmaker, reflected on the possible end of his middle class existence, he says, "My grandson will have a worse life than I had." I wonder if Americans really understand what America will look like with the end of the good paying blue collar manufacturing jobs that created the middle class in this country.