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TRUCKER'S STORY * USA - $13 billion auto bailout won't help trucker
Victor Pizana's firm did well, and he hired others to work for him - But with many ties to auto industry, he's now trying to avoid bankruptcy
Lansing,Mich,USA -CNN, by Emanuella Grinberg -December 19, 2008: -- The massive injection of funds to the Detroit automakers has come too late to save the American Dream for one man... Victor Pizana began working for GM in Lansing, Michigan, back when they still built Oldsmobiles there, and spent 31 happy years with the company before deciding to cash in his chips and invest in himself... Pizana was one of 35,000 GM workers who took a deal from the automaker in 2006. He took his buyout money, his savings and his high school diploma and started a trucking company named after his grandchildren, Erica and Alex... Pizana started out with one truck and one driver -- his son, Andy, who had encouraged him to start the business... Then the perfect storm hit... The economy tanked and Pizana lost business when manufacturers cut back runs. Diesel fuel prices soared while Pizana's charges remained the same. An avalanche of bills and threatening phone calls followed and, little by little, Pizana began cutting back, handing over his trucks and firing his drivers until there was nothing left... Earlier this month, a little more than two years after he incorporated E&A LLC, Pizana handed over his last truck to the bank in an attempt to avoid bankruptcy... Now, both men are in a bind. Pizana has lost his personal fortune, his job and the jobs he had created for his son and his friends. GM recently cut his father's benefits, leaving him to search for alternative coverage... Yet Pizana remains reluctant to speak ill of the company that employed him and his father, and that put his own wife and children through college. And while a bailout probably won't help him, he believes that government assistance for GM, Ford and Chrysler would provide a lifeline for the country's languishing middle class -- especially in Michigan, home of the country's highest unemployment rate... Now Pizana divides his time among his truck runs, caring for his ailing father and pursuing ways of putting a dent in his debt... (Photo: Victor Pizana is trying to stave off bankruptcy after setting up his own business with cash from a GM buyout)Labels: truckers' stories
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