Michigan Needs Toyota

It is the home state of the United Auto Workers union, but if Michigan is ever going to save its manufacturing jobs, it needs non-union auto makers moving into the state.

The media keep harping that China is siphoning off all the good manufacturing jobs. But manufacturing employment in the U.S. auto industry still is near its all-time peak of 1 million people. We haven't lost those jobs. They haven't gone offshore. They merely have shifted to non-Big Three plants in non-union Southern states. Or, in the case of Ohio and Indiana, they've gone to Northern states that tolerate non-union OEM plants.

With the exception of AutoAlliance International, a Ford/Mazda joint venture, Michigan — the largest vehicle-producing state in the nation — hasn't attracted a single one of the 16 “transplant” assembly plants foreign auto makers built in North America in the last 20 years. It has not attracted any foreign engine or transmission plants, either. So Michigan is losing jobs in perfect synchronization with the Big Three's loss of market share.

The numbers are alarming. In 1994, the Big Three sold 11 million North American-made vehicles in the U.S. In 2004, they sold 9.8 million, and the number is slipping. Many traditional suppliers now realize that to survive they have to do business with the transplants. So must the state of Michigan.

When GM finishes building its newest Michigan assembly plant near Lansing, and DaimlerChrysler finishes building its engine plant in Dundee, the Big Three will not build a new plant in Michigan for years. Maybe decades. Maybe never again.

The only way Michigan can save the jobs it has, and maybe even win some back, is by enticing foreign auto makers to build plants in the state. But it's patently clear the transplants don't want to deal with the UAW. So the state needs to cut a deal with the union. The UAW has to agree to look the other way if a transplant comes calling and promise not to launch an organizing drive (see related story, p.11).

Only a Democrat with strong union support — namely Jennifer Granholm, Michigan's current governor — can pull off something like this. Sort of like President Nixon going to China in the 1970s — only a strong, anti-Communist Republican could get away with such a politically volatile move.

The governor needs to tell the union: “Look, if I can't grow jobs for working people in this state, I'm out of a job. And if the Democratic Party can't provide jobs, Michigan is in danger of becoming a red state!”

Meanwhile, Toyota has announced it needs two more assembly plants in North America before the end of the decade. News reports suggest one of the plants will go to Ontario, Canada. Now Michigan needs to do everything in its power to welcome Toyota with open arms and get that second plant.

John McElroy is editorial director of Blue Sky Productions and producer of “Autoline Detroit” for WTVS-Channel 56, Detroit, and Speed Channel.