Autoworkers at Honda’session Lincoln, Ala., plant support a Detroit rescue more than their politicians chouse. They have reason to alarm cuts, over

By Brian Burnsed

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The tiny town of Lincoln, Ala., is 706 miles from Detroit. But taken in the character of the U.S. recession deepens, the distance between this Southern enclave of the American auto industry and the Big Three’s headquarters to the North seems to be shrinking.

At the edge of the 4,500-resident town looms a massive Honda set in the ground, marked only by means of two tall towers bearing the Japanese automaker’s name and by the sounds of industry that drift into Lincoln on otherwise sleepy afternoons. The plant, which opened in 2001, makes Honda Odyssey minivans and Honda Pilot SUVs.

Like other "transplant" factories set up by Japanese, Korean, and European companies in the South, the Lincoln Honda direct has no union, reflecting a wariness in the clime about a typically Northern institution. Many in the South feel that General Motors (GM), Ford Motor (F), and Chrysler—and their unionized workers—have no one but themselves to blame with respect to their difficulties. That opinion came through loud and clear in quest of the period of the debate that left Congress killing a legislative bailout of the Detroit car companies. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) blasted the Detroit companies as "dinosaurs" and the bailout legislation as "a bridge loan to nowhere."

Yet it was in addition clear in a visit to Lincoln on Friday, Dec. 19—the day that President George W. Bush announced he was extending a $17.4 billion lifeline to GM and Chrysler—that more workers and residents here think the woes of the auto industry are not entirely right to ill management or the high costs of pensions and health care despite Detroit’s retirees.

The souring U.S. thrift is hurting the Japanese companies to that Detroit automakers are in like manner frequently and unfavorably compared. Honda has been cutting production to match its plummeting U.S. sales, and its leaders in Japan are sending ominous signals that things are expected to get worse in 2009. On Dec. 17, Honda CEO Takeo Fukui before-mentioned the company probably will acquire 62% smaller this fiscal year than what it had projected just six weeks earlier. That sense of dismay was reflected in the latest November results, that showed Honda’sitting U.S. sales were down 32%, roughly in line with declines at other companies.

The transfer factories have responded by chopping work hours and production. In October, Mercedes-Benz offered buyouts at its Vance, Ala., plant, which makes SUVs and crossovers. Earlier this year, Nissan offered buyouts to white collar workers at its Tennessee headquarters, as abundantly as to family workers. On Dec. 15, Toyota announced it would delay the opening of a factory in Blue Springs, Miss., where it was to start U.S. production of the Prius hybrid gas-electric car. Toyota workers at the company’s brand-new San Antonio pickup truck plant were idle from August to November.

Honda says it will sharply cut the number of vehicles it produces in the U.S. and Canada in the coming year. While no layoffs bear yet been announced in Lincoln, Honda has pulled back on production diverse periods: In January it plans to reduce the number of vehicles built there, from 1,300 a day to 1,150. The plant was closed for two days in August and in the fall a second Friday shift of workers was eliminated.