Roger & Me

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I was kind of a strange child.

My parents knew early on

that something was wrong with me.

I crawled backwards until I was two...

but had Kennedy's inaugural address

memorized by the time I was six.

It all began when my mother didn't

show up for my first birthday party...

because she was having my sister.

My dad tried to cheer me up

by letting me eat the whole cake.

I knew then

there had to be more to life than this.

When I was a kid, I thought only

three people worked for General Motors:

Pat Boone, Dinah Shore and my dad.

Our hometown of Flint, Michigan,

was the birthplace of General Motors...

the largest corporation in the world.

There were more auto factories and

workers here than in any city on Earth.

We built Cadillacs, Buicks,

and Fisher bodies...

GM trucks, Chevrolets,

and AC spark plugs.

We enjoyed a prosperity

that working people had never seen.

And the city was grateful to the company.

With the whole city rocking,

Flint, Michigan, throws a birthday party.

It's for the people of General Motors

on their 50th anniversary.

Pat Boone celebrates with a song.

The promise of the future is the keynote

set by GM President, Harlow Curtis.

From the world of TV

comes Sergeant Garcia...

and the swordsman known as Zorro.

But the big hit of the parade...

is the lively marching

of the Elks junior drill team.

The citizens of Flint,

birthplace of General Motors...

also see the radiant Miss America.

This was Flint as I remember,

where every day was a great day.

It's a great day, all right.

A salute to Mr. And Mrs. America.

My dad worked on the assembly line at

GM's AC Spark Plug in Flint for 33 years.

In fact, as I grew older, I discovered

my entire family had worked for GM:

Grandparents, parents, brothers, sisters,

aunts, uncles, cousins. Everyone but me.

My uncle Laverne

was in the Great Flint Sit-Down Strike.

Just hours before the year's end in 1936...

he and thousands of other GM workers

took over the Flint factories...

and barricaded themselves inside,

refusing to budge for 44 days.

The National Guard was called in,

and the eyes of the world were on Flint.

On February 11, 1937,

General Motors gave in...

and the UAW was born.

The GM employee

has made great advances.

It is our wish that he continue to prosper.

Most of our employees,

even those who at times cause problems...

are conscientious

and hardworking men and women.

Men and women to whose imagination,

ingenuity, energy and dedication...

our country owes

its industrial leadership in the world.

That all sounded fine and good,

but the assembly line wasn't for me.

My heroes were the Flint people

who'd escaped the life in the factory...

and got out of Flint,

like the guys in Grand Funk Railroad...

Casey Kasem, the women who married

Zubin Mehta and Don Knotts...

and perhaps Flint's

most famous native son, Bob Eubanks...

host of TV's hit show

The Newlywed Game.

I figured if Bob Eubanks

could make it out of here, so could I.

After 10 years of editing my own paper

in Flint...

a California millionaire

asked me to be the editor...

of his muckraking magazine

in San Francisco.

It didn't take me long

to figure out what to do.

The final issue of the Michigan Voice

is being printed.

Ten years after he began it, Michael Moore

is moving to San Francisco.

What would you do?

I mean, this was San Francisco.

But San Francisco was on

the other side of the world from Flint.

Everyone there had a job,

yet no one seemed to be working.

The cafs were filled with people

at 3:
00 p. M.

I was told there's one restaurant

for every 44 people in San Francisco...

but most of them

seemed to be dessert places.

Trying to get a simple cup of coffee

became a nightmare for me.

Espresso, double espresso,

cappuccino, double cappuccino...

latte, double latte, mocha, double mocha...

caffe con panna, macchiato,

double macchiato...

caffe bianco, or house blend.

I was feeling disoriented living in a town

that didn't carry any nondairy creamer.

I went to work and announced...

that I was going to give a monthly column

to a Flint auto worker.

The owner instead told me to run

an investigative report on herbal teas.

I told him I had a better idea:

Let's put the auto worker on the cover.

The owner wasn't amused and declared

that California and I were a mismatch...

just before he offered me

my free U-Haul back to Michigan.

- Hello, Dad.

- Hello, son.

- t's been a long time.

- t sure has.

- Where's Mom?

- n the kitchen.

Why, your hands are filthy!

- Go upstairs and wash them.

- Okay, Mom.

Okay, so my homecoming

wasn't quite like that.

In fact, I wasn't back in Flint more than

a few days when the bad news hit.

This is the CBS Evening News,

Dan Rather reporting.

Good evening.

General Motors confirmed it today.

It is going to close plants

employing almost 30,000 workers.

Today we are announcing the closing...

of 11 of our older plants.

While Detroit and Pontiac

will certainly be hurt by the shutdowns...

the effect on Flint

is absolutely devastating.

Devastating wasn't the half of it.

Maybe I got this wrong...

but I thought companies lay off people

when they hit hard times.

GM was the richest company

in the world...

and it was closing factories

when it was making profits in the billions.

We do not have any plan

to cut our workforce by 80,000.

That was kind of

a what-happens-if type of thing.

So this was GM chairman Roger Smith.

He appeared to have a brilliant plan:

First close 11 factories in the U. S...

then open 11 in Mexico, where

you pay the workers 70 cents an hour.

Use the money you saved by building cars

in Mexico to take over other companies...

preferably high-tech firms

and weapons manufacturers.

Next, tell the union you're broke...

and they happily give back

a couple of billion dollars in wage cuts.

Then take that money from workers...

and eliminate their jobs

by building more foreign factories.

Roger Smith was a true genius.

I think our employees

have got a new emphasis on job security...

and we want to try

and help them with that.

- What do you have to say to Roger Smith?

- t's gonna be rough.

I can't mention it on television.

This was to be

the first of many layoffs in Flint...

the final day for the GM truck plant.

I think most of you are aware...

that this is the first major plant closing...

to take place in Flint.

Let me rephrase that.

This isn't a plant closing.

It's a loss of one product line.

My friends and I decided to pose

as a TV crew from Toledo...

to sneak inside the factory.

I wasn't exactly sure

what a TV crew from Toledo looked like...

but apparently the ruse worked, as we

filmed the last truck going down the line.

What's everybody so happy about?

We just lost our jobs.

Everybody's applauding.

They just lost their jobs.

We're trying impress upon the employees

that are being laid off...

that there is nothing out there for them...

to depend upon for the future.

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