Who's Steven Chu? Some aren't sure when White House's economic goodwill tour hits Midwest

As members of President Obama's Cabinet continue their tour across the country’s heartland today – pledging millions of dollars in help – the trip of Washington goodwill has left local residents feeling more than a little skeptical.

Take folks in Fort Wayne, Ind., the state’s second-largest city. An estimated 24,000 people in the surrounding four-county area rely on the auto industry for their livelihood. Think most of them recognized Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, when he stopped into town yesterday to tour a “green” energy company and speak to local leaders? Nope.

In fact, quite a few people were confused about why the White House would be sending out Chu to this northeastern stretch of the Hoosier State instead of … well … Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis or someone from the automotive task force.

It could have been stranger. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar spent yesterday talking about the economic benefits of parks and conservation – in Cleveland, Ohio. Yep, that’s right: Cleveland, the Rust Belt town that blossomed on the backs of steel mills and auto facilities, and where the Cuyahoga River itself has caught fire because of industrial pollution.

So Fort Wayne got Chu, a 61-year-old Nobel-prize winner who reminisced Tuesday about how he last visited Indiana when he was a college student – and promised that green energy would turn around the Hoosier economy.

Chu spent his morning touring WaterFurnace International Inc., a local maker of geothermal heating and cooling systems for homes and commercial facilities. As Chu walked across the factory floor with company executives, workers in blue shop shirts stopped to stare at the slight man in a crisp suit.

 “Who’s he?” murmured one woman standing on the assembly line.

“Some guy saying GM isn’t going to save us,” replied her co-worker.

The two women rolled their eyes. Chu didn’t hear them. But they heard him and his speech, broadcast on local TV stations, to a group of Indiana business and political leaders. He touted WaterFurnace as a success story and praised it for creating local jobs. He pointed out that the company’s products saved consumers so much in their monthly utility bills that the equipment paid for itself.

He didn’t mention that, with 282 employees, WaterFurnace is a relatively small operation. He didn’t say that the business has hired only 37 new workers in the last year, or that the company receives at least 200 resumes a month from people looking for jobs.

So it’s understandable that folks here doubt that Washington actually gets what’s happening in the heartland. Even some of WaterFurnace’s own employees, who watched as Chu was led around their factory floor, were skeptical. David Work spent more than 20 years at an area automotive supplier when his employer closed its doors in 2007. It took him 18 months, and all but $100 from his savings, before he landed a job with WaterFurnace last fall.

“I feel incredibly lucky to be here,” Work said. “I don’t think everyone in the auto industry’s going to be able to make that jump, because there are not a lot of skilled-trade jobs out there.”  Work’s not being cynical. He’s being realistic.

The ripple effects of the GM bankruptcy are already being felt in this stretch of northeast Indiana, where unemployment hovers around 11%. This week, 600 people lost their jobs when Fort Wayne Foundry Corp. went out of business. The company made aluminum engine parts for GM. Last week, GM told the company it no longer needed its services. And later this year, Karl Schmidt Unisia Inc. – which makes engine pistons and piston rings for GM – will also close its doors.

The White House’s road trip of hope continued today, with EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson stopping by Columbus and Cincinnati, Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke touring through Michigan, and Solis (along with Ed Montgomery of the auto task force) heading to Cleveland.

--P.J. Huffstutter

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Photo: Energy Secretary Steven Chu, center, chats with plant manager Kevin Fockler during a tour of the WaterFurnace International Inc. on Tuesday in Fort Wayne, Ind. Credit: Associated Press

 

Comments

[Pom Pom Girl]

Union Free Big 3 - Give It A Try Big Chu
Those telling you to not sign petitions to place Right To Work on the ballot are union lackeys. Right To Work is all about free speech as well as your right to independence and your Constitutional right to freedom of association. It would allow workers to be free both to join unions and to refrain from joining unions. This would prevent unions from being able to force employers to include clauses in their union contracts which require all employees to either join the union, or pay union dues as a condition of employment.
Of course "forced union dues" are used to support political causes & one particular Party, causes & a party which many union members may oppose so of course the "free thinking" unions don't want you to vote for this.

Had the auto companies been free of the blackmail of the Unions they could have shed costs and survived. It worked during the Great Depression! The taxpayers would not have had to go into debt at the Democrats request to try to stave off bankruptcy. The Government would not then have had to engineer a bankruptcy that trampled on the rights of Auto Dealers & Bond Holders or violated free trade agreements in order to smooth over the lie they told Unions & their dependent communities last fall about the lack of need for bankruptcy in the first place. The cost of the Democrats need to apologize to the Union was to hand over control & ownership to them of the very companies they drove into the grave.

[William Shaw]

They may not get him in Fort Wayne, but we are kind of keen on him over here in the UK.

See:
http://artsandecology.rsablogs.org.uk/2009/06/05/the-day-rsa-arts-ecology-met-us-energy-secretary-steven-chu/