The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant

On June 3, 2008, a shockwave tore through the General Motors factory near Dayton, Ohio when it was announced that it would be closing down. It had been producing 280,000 large cars annually since 1981, but because of the high oil prices, nobody was buying gas-guzzling SUVs anymore. And this was before the recession had even begun. In , Emmy award-winning directors Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, renowned for , interviewed employees in the six months preceding the factory's Christmas Eve closure. And with that, 2,500 workers and 250 supervisors had nothing left to show for their work. With tears in their eyes, the interviewees explain how deeply they were affected by the decision to close. Most of them speak from their cars as they are leaving the factory grounds; none of them can quite believe it. The closure also has huge consequences for the surrounding area, with restaurants losing customers and freight trains at a standstill. And then CNN and Fox add insult to injury by broadcasting reports that GM employees were getting overpaid -- in reality, their net income wasn't generous in the least. The license plate on the last car rolling off the production line reads "THE END." In the words of one employee, "We're at the end of the good life."