Roger & Me (Roger & Me)

I was kind of a strange child.

My parents knew early on that something must have been wrong with me.

I crawled backwards until I was 2-..

But had Kennedy's inaugural address memorized by the time I was 6.

It all began when my mother didn't show up for my first birthday party...

because she was off having my sister.

My dad tried to cheer me up by letting me eat the whole cake.

I knew then there had to be more to life than this.

- Pat! - Pat!

Pat Boone!

Here he comes Here he comes, swingin' a tune.

Here he comes, here he comes Pat Boone

Talk to me baby.

Whisper in my ear.

When I was a kid, I thought only three people worked for General Motors:

Pat Boone, Dinah Shore and my dad.

Our hometown of Flint, Michigan, was the birthplace of General Motors...

the largest corporation in the world.

There were more auto factories and auto workers here than in any other city on Earth.

We built Cadillacs, Buicks, and Fisher bodies...

GM trucks, Chevrolets, and AC spark plugs.

We enjoyed a prosperity that working people around the world had never seen before.

And the city was grateful to the company.

With the whole city rocking, Flint, Michigan throws a birthday party.

It's for the people of General Motors on their 50th anniversary.

Pat Boone celebrates with a song.

The promise of the future is the keynote set by GM president, Harlow Curtis.

From the world of TV comes Sergeant Garcia...

and the swordsman known as Zorro.

But the big hit of the parade...

is the lively marching of the Elks junior drill team.

The citizens of Flint, birthplace of General Motors...

also see the radiant Miss America.

This was Flint as 1 remember it, where every day was a great day.

Oh, it's a great day, all right.

A salute to Mr. and Mrs. America.

Teamwork, teamwork.

The nation's secret was teamwork.

And those doubters and scowlers Said this is as far as you'll get.

GM answered You ain't seen.

Nothing yet.

My dad worked on the assembly line...

at GM's AC Spark Plug in Flint for 33 years.

In fact, as I grew older, 1 discovered that my entire family had worked for GM:

Grandparents, parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins. Everyone but me.

My uncle Laverne was in something called the Great Flint Sit-Down Strike.

Just hours before the year's end in 1936...

he and thousands of other GM workers took over the Flint factories...

and barricaded themselves inside, refusing to budge for 44 days.

The National Guard was called in, and the eyes of the world were on Flint.

On February 11th, 1937, General Motors gave in...

. - .and the UAW was born.

The GM employee has made great advances.

And it is our wish that he continue to prosper.

Most of our employees, even those who at times cause problems...

are conscientious and hardworking men and women.

Men and women to whose imagination, ingenuity, energy and dedication...

our country owes its industrial leadership in the world.

Well that all sounded fine and good, but the assembly line wasn't for me.

My heroes were the Flint people who had escaped the life in the factory...

and got out of Flint, like the guys in Grand Funk Railroad...

Casey Kasey, the women who married Rubin Meta and Don Knots...

and perhaps Flint's most famous native son, Bob Eu banks...

host of TV's hit show The Newlywed Game.

I figured if Bob Eu banks could make it out of here, so could I.

After 10 years of editing my own paper in Flint...

a California millionaire called and asked me to be the editor...

of his muckraking magazine in San Francisco.

It didn't take me long to figure out what to do.

The final issue of the Michigan Voice is being printed.

Ten years after he started the magazine, Michael Moore is moving on to San Francisco.

Well, what would you do? I mean, this was San Francisco.

But San Francisco was on the other side of the world from Flint.

Everyone there had a job, yet no one seemed to be working.

The cafés were filled with people at 3 in the afternoon.

I was told there's one restaurant for every 44 people in San Francisco...

but most of them seemed to be dessert places.

Trying to get a simple cup of coffee became a nightmare for me.

Espresso, double espresso, cappuccino, double cappuccino...

latte, double latte, mocha, double mocha...

cafffe con panna, macchiato, double macchiato...

uh, caffe bianco, or house blend.

I was feeling a bit disoriented...

living in a town that didn't carry any nondairy creamer.

I went in to work and announced...

that I was going to give a monthly column to a Flint auto worker.

The owner instead toad me to run an investigative report on herbal teas.

I told him I had a better idea: Let's put that auto worker on the cover.

The owner wasn't amused and declared that California and I were a mismatch...

just before he offered me my free U-Haul back to Michigan.

- Hello, Dad. - Hello, son.

- It's been a long time. - It sure has.

- Where's Mom? - In the kitchen.

Why, your hands are filthy!

- Go upstairs and wash them. - Okay, Mom.

Okay, so my homecoming wasn't quite like that.

In fact, I wasn't back in Flint more than a few days when the bad news hit.

This is the CBS Evening News, Dan Rather reporting.

Good evening.

General Motors confirmed it today.

It is going to close plants employing almost 30,000 workers.

Today we are announcing the closing...

of 11 of our older plants.

While Detroit and Pontiac will certainly be hurt by the shutdowns...

the effect on Flint is absolutely devastating.

Heh, devastating wasn't the half of it.

Maybe I got this wrong...

but I thought companies lay off people when they've hit hard times.

GM was the richest company in the world...

and it was closing factories when it was making profits in the billions.

We do not have any plan to cut our workforce by 80,000.

That was kind of a what-happens-if type of thing.

So this was GM chairman Roger Smith.

And he appeared to have a brilliant plan:

First, close 11 factories in the U.S...

then open 11 in Mexico, where you pay the workers 70 cents an hour.

Then use the money you saved by building cars in Mexico to take over other companies...

preferably high-tech firms and weapons manufacturers.

Next, tell the union you're broke...

and they happily agree to give back a couple billion dollars in wage cuts.

You then take that money from workers...

and eliminate their jobs by building more foreign factories.

Heh, Roger Smith was a true genius.

I think our employees have got a new emphasis on job security...

and certainly we want to try and help them with that.

What do you have to say to Smith?

Boy, it's gonna be rough.

I can't mention it on television.

This was to be the first of many layoffs in Flint...

the final day for the GM truck plant.

I think most of you are aware...

that this is the first major plant closing...

to take place in Flint. Let me rephrase that.

This is not a plant closing. It's a loss of one product line.

My friends and I decided to pose as a TV crew from Toledo...

to sneak inside the factory.

I wasn't exactly sure what a TV crew from Toledo looked like...

but apparently the ruse worked, as we filmed the last truck going down the line.

What's everybody so happy about? We just lost our jobs.

Everybody's applauding. They just lost their jobs.

We're trying impress upon the employees that are being laid off...

that there is nothing out there for them...

to depend upon for the future.

The best thing Michigan can do and General Motors can do...

is get rid of Roger Smith and them other son of a bitches.

That seemed to be the general consensus...

as I talked to many GM workers about their chairman, Roger Smith.

What would you tell Roger Smith if you could talk to him?

Oh, Roger Smith? I'd tell him to retire.

He can't look an auto worker in the eye, because...

- He should be feeling guilty. - Most people are hungry. He's not.

I'd tell old Roger Smith to get off his big bucks...

and start giving some of it back to its workers.

I'm sick and tired of these damn fat cats.

I could say a few choice words, but I'm a lady and I was raised a lady...

so I won't say what I really feel, but, um...

I could use some very unsavory language as far as the fat cats.

Fire Roger Smith! Fire Roger Smith!

There were those who had a different opinion in Flint...

like Tom Kay, a spokesman and lobbyist for GM.

I'm sure that Roger Smith...

has a social conscience as strong as anybody else in the country.

Because a guy is an automobile executive does not make him inhuman.

I've talked to enough of them. I know what their concerns are.

He has as much concern about these people as you do or as I do...

and nobody likes to see anybody laid off or put in a hardship situation.

Have you ever talked to Roger Smith? - Sure. Yeah.

How do you find him to be? - I never...

A very warm man. I have, uh...

A warm man?

Did I have Roger Smith judged all wrong...

simply because he was eliminating 30, 000 jobs from my hometown?

I decided to find out.

I wrote. I phoned. 1 faxed. I tried every means of communication available...

but nothing seemed to get me any closer to Roger.

I was left with no choice.

I got in the car and drove about an hour south of Flint to Detroit...

to the world headquarters of General Motors.

My mission was a simple one:

To convince Roger Smith to Spend a day with me in Flint...

and meet some of the people who were losing their jobs.

Everybody in?

Can I help you gentlemen? - Yes, we're going to the 14th floor.

Do you have an appointment? Uh, no, we don't.

I think you need an appointment. To go up there?

Yes. MOORE: Oh. Um...

Well, how can we make one? You want to step out...

Firstly, anything above... We came down from Flint.

Anything above the first level here is private property. That's off-limits.

This is all off-limits. It's a security area.

This is? All right.

Listen, who did you want to talk to? Roger Smith.

- I want to talk to Roger Smith. - I'll get a PR man and we'll see what we can do.

What kind of movie are you making? It's a documentary on Flint.

Okay. On the labor problems?

Yeah. The whole situation, the plant shutdowns, the layoffs.

We will try to have someone contact you as soon as someone's available.

All right, I'd appreciate it. - Have you got some credentials?

Where they can get in touch with you? What's your name?

- Herb Slaughter. I'll give you a business card. - My name's Michael Moore.