CLINTON: Two speak for autoworkers

The Herald Bulletin

March 20, 2008 11:10 pm

— Steve Lewis, former president of United Workers Local 663, and Robin Derexson, former Guide employees, were asked to speak from the stage Thursday during Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s speech. Here’s a sample of what they said:
Steve Lewis: “As you know, Guide Corp. went from approximately 5,000 to 6,000 workers in the ’70s and ’80s down to a whopping zero workers today. We’ve seen it happen all over the country. We’ve seen it happen time and time again. I cannot tell you unless you’ve lived through it how devastating an experience this is.
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re single, you have a family — and I have my family with me today, my beautiful wife and boys, sister and dad and the whole nine yards — it’s amazing how many people you know when you decide you’re going to get to come on stage, you know?
“But honestly, this is a very serious issue, and we’re so thankful to Hillary for coming here and telling us that she is going to make a change for Anderson, Indiana and for workers like myself and for workers like Robin.”
Robin Derexson: “I’ve lived in my house almost three years, never been late on a payment, never been late on any of my bills and when I lost my job at Guide, there was a chance that in a year that everybody on Option 5 might struggle. Like everybody else, with their house in a foreclosure, I took a chance that might happen to me as well.
“I got two kids. I want to set an example to them as well as everybody else. Hopefully, we’ll get picked up and everybody will be OK, but unless someone like you gets elected, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

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