America’s Other Auto Industry, the Successful One

CNN has a great story about the successful auto companies in America, namely those that aren’t named “GM,” “Chrysler,” or “Ford.”

Turns out, folks who work at and live near the Honda engine plant in Anna, Ohio don’t think the auto industry should get a bailout.  Local waitress September Quinn is quoted in the story as saying:

I don’t think they should bail them out because … obviously something’s not right in the way they’re running their business, and why should the American people have to bail them out if they can’t figure out how to do it right?

Quinn also had some insights into the problems that big labor unions have caused for the big three automakers.  As the CNN story reports:

“People agree with the unions because the workers want to be backed on everything, but then again, there aren’t people striving to do their job better,” said Quinn, whose father works at the nonunion Honda plant. “They’ve just got Papa Bear to back them up in any instance, and they keep their job. And you can do that, but I don’t know at the cost of what.”

That sort of common sense is a refreshing break from the doomsday rhetoric being spouted by domestic automakers and members of Congress.  Optimism is also present in the final quote of the story offered by John Lenhart, an officer with the Sidney-Shelby County Chamber of Commerce and a consultant with Plastipak Packaging in Jackson Center, Ohio:

The country’s got some ills, but we’ll heal up [ . . . ] We’ll be all right.

Check out the full story at CNN.com.