by Gongwer News Service
June 5, 2009

Even with repeated assurances from leaders this week that manufacturing and even the automobile industry will remain the lifeblood of Michigan’s economy, it’s clear that General Motors’ recent day in bankruptcy court was also the Great Lakes State’s day of reckoning, finally bringing to bear the end of a 40-year-long manufacturing boom “they” said would never end.

Alas, even Governor Jennifer Granholm, in her weekly radio address in which she mostly gushed about the state’s transformative power to turn manufacturing skill into alternative energy might, couldn’t help but state the obvious: “An era is ending. …While many people will continue working in GM plants building the next generation of vehicles, others will be leaving. And for them, we will help however we can, from extended unemployment benefits to job retraining.”

But from there, she painted an optimistic picture of what is perhaps one of the most frightening situations to hit a state so closely tied to the automobile industry that 55 percent of its economy was tied to some type of manufacturing just 40 years ago, and its heart is still largely wrapped up in words like “Henry Ford” and “Motor City.” She emphasized that in bankruptcy, both General Motors and Chrysler are being restructured — not liquidated.

“The Obama administration supported restructuring GM and Chrysler into viable companies, because it understands the United States needs a strong automotive industry and a manufacturing sector,” Ms. Granholm said.

“Now we have to continue our ongoing efforts to shape a new future for Michigan, one in which we will use our manufacturing expertise to achieve a national goal of energy independence,” she continued. “Manufacturers of green products like wind turbines or advanced batteries can find everything they need in Michigan: technological know-how, factory space, skilled workers, transportation systems, great universities.”

“These are tough times for Michigan, but we’re pretty tough ourselves,” Granholm said. “GM and Chrysler will emerge from bankruptcy as stronger companies, and the Big Three will play indispensable roles in our nation’s journey to energy independence. It’s a time of national transformation to a green economy, and Michigan is ready to lead.”

So, while legislators are scratching their heads, looking for ways to diversify the economy further, attempting to move it even further away from the roughly 20 percent (and declining) dependence it has on manufacturing, Ms. Granholm continues to insist that the state’s manufacturing legacy will actually ensure it’s future as a hub for further industrial work, with perhaps a different purpose.

In a press conference, earlier in the week, Ms. Granholm re-emphasized that the state will aggressively pursue not only new vehicles that GM will make, but also stress to the nation and the world that Michigan has the industrial capacity to build the equipment and machines needed for the new environmental economy.

While Michigan is tough even in tough times, she said, it is critical that the state aggressively push to reinvent itself to meet the needs of a new environmentally based economy.

“We must be building, the country must be building, the new green economy,” she said. “We are not throwing in the towel.”

Legislators aren’t throwing in the towel either; they have long been questioning how to keep the Big Three alive in a new economy, recognizing that it won’t be our grandfathers’ GM, Ford or Chrysler, but that leaner, greener companies that can survive the new millennium are vital to Michigan’s economy.

Still, with economic experts constantly pushing for diversification, lawmakers have long been issuing legislation to attract new types of big employers to the state, such as with the film credit package or bills to cut taxes for companies involved in alternative energy.

The lingering question: can Michigan diversify in time to make up for the hundreds of thousands of job losses in manufacturing or, alternatively, can manufacturing make a comeback by changing its focus from autos to alternative energy, as the governor proposes, and rescue many people whose only work experience thus far is in manufacturing.

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