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FORD Jan-26-2006 (900 words) With photos. xxxn
Clergy wonder how to deal with effect of Ford job cuts in their areas
By Robert Delaney
Catholic News Service
DETROIT (CNS) -- As Ford Motor Co. announced its intent to close 14 manufacturing plants and cut up to 30,000 jobs over the next six years, clergy in cities affected by the plant closings wondered how they were going to help their parishioners whose jobs and livelihoods were at risk.
Father Michael Savickas said he would remind parishioners affected by the planned closing of Ford's assembly plant in Wixom, a Detroit suburb, of the symbol of the church as an anchor.
"Our faith is a fixed point we can hold onto when things are changing around us," Father Savickas, pastor of St. William Parish in nearby Walled Lake, said soon after hearing the Jan. 23 announcement that the huge plant within his parish boundaries would close as part of the automaker's "Way Forward" restructuring plan.
Faced with a declining share of the U.S. car market and losses on its domestic business, Ford's sweeping plan includes closing five plants by 2008, including Wixom.
Father Savickas said he knows about 100 of his parish's 2,350 families include Ford employees, but was not sure how many of them are employed at Wixom. But he added that many more parishioners could be affected.
"This will probably have an even larger impact on people who work for other companies that are suppliers to the plant, or those in service businesses such as restaurants that depend on business from the plant's workers," he said.
The Wixom plant stands just outside the parish boundaries of St. James Parish in the suburb of Novi, and its pastor was already asking parishioners to pray for the Wixom workers at weekend Masses prior to the announcement.
Father George Charnley, St. James' pastor, said he believes the church has a solid message of hope for those affected by the planned closing. "As Catholics, we're always hope-filled and relying on the Lord," he told The Michigan Catholic, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Detroit.
Sponsoring a jobs fair could be a way for the parish to help, Father Charnley suggested. He said he did not know how many of the parish's 2,000 families included Ford Wixom workers or others who might be affected.
Ron Michels, 43, a pipe fitter in the paint shop at the Wixom plant and a member of St. William Parish, said the announcement was not unexpected. "I pretty much knew it was coming. It's been a two-year ordeal, ever since the plant went down to one shift," he said. "Unless you'd been sleeping, it's not really a surprise, but it is a disappointment."
Michels said Ford workers would be eligible for unemployment, with supplemental pay from Ford taking them up to about 80 percent of what they were making for up to 40 weeks. Beyond that point, they would go into the company's "jobs bank" for an additional period.
Michels said he and his wife, Kris, would have to look at all their expenditures, including the tuition they pay for three children to attend St. William Elementary School.
But he added they were "not in a crisis mode," and had "always been kind of thrifty."
Michels said his wife was already going to school to get a better job, and he could always use his pipefitting skills to do other kinds of plumbing work.
He said faith should be a constant in a person's life under any circumstances. "You need your faith whether or not you keep your job -- in bad times or in good times," he added.
Ford is also closing an assembly plant in Hazelwood, Mo., outside St. Louis.
"The impending closing ... is a matter of great concern both to me and to the Catholic Church in the St. Louis region," said a Jan. 24 statement by Archbishop Raymond L. Burke of St. Louis.
"We understand that such closings are usually necessitated by undeniable economic realities and that there are complex issues of corporate viability which must be taken into consideration as well," he said.
"However, the loss of livelihood for anyone is a hardship, and not only for that individual. It has repercussions for everyone with whom that person interacts. When the loss is multiplied hundreds of times over, as will be the case with the layoffs resulting from the closing of the Hazelwood manufacturing facility, the situation becomes critical for the entire community," he said.
Archbishop Burke said a Catholic Family Services office would relocate to nearby St. Sabina Church in Florissant, Mo., as of Feb. 1 to provide counseling and other services to laid-off workers and to their families.
"Also, the archdiocesan Catholic Education Office is currently working with parishes in the vicinity of the Hazelwood plant to ensure that families affected by the closing will be able to continue to make a Catholic education available to their children." he added.
Sydney Boesen, business manager of St. John the Evangelist Parish in Hapeville, Ga., an Atlanta suburb, said the parish was considering surveying parishioners who work at the Hapeville Ford assembly plant, also scheduled to close under the automaker's plan, to assess their needs.
Boesen said the parish is also home to a number of workers at Delta Air Lines, which declared bankruptcy last year. Belt-tightening at Delta included both layoffs and wage and benefit cuts.
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Contributing to this story was Joe Kenny in St. Louis and Gretchen Keiser in Atlanta.
END
Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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