FLINT, Mich. – Credit unions are searching for new ways to help the beleaguered auto workers after Monday’s bankruptcy filing by General Motors, but most of them have been offering special programs for years to stem the demise of America’s car industry.
Auto manufacturing communities like Flint, Dearborn and Lansing have been under assault for decades from the onset of foreign competition, environmental demands and labor costs."Flint has been under stress for 30 years," said Jill Reno, president of Financial Plus CU.
Ironically, the one-time GM credit union which has diversified its membership away from the auto industry now faces a different kind of threat–to its members working in allied industries. "Members outside the GM community are seeing more job loss, rather than inside the GM community," Reno told The Credit Union Journal yesterday.
"This is the fourth year of tough times in our community. We were hit way earlier than the rest of the country," said Jenny Ludwigsen, spokesman for Dort FCU, in Flint, where the GM Engine Plant is now scheduled to close Dec. 10. "That will be huge," she said.
"Sad is the best way to describe it," said Diane Addington, president of Genisys CU, which serves one of the plants, the Pontiac East Assembly, that will close under the bankruptcy plan. "For some people it’s a way of life," said Addington. "They don’t even retire when they can."
So Genisys and some credit unions have explored creating offering an alternative vision or dental plan to their members to counter cutbacks in those benefits under the bankruptcy.
Also, more than two dozen credit unions are offering their members free budget counseling through Accel Credit Counseling. The anonymous phone service provides members with guidance on budgeting, unemployment and future employment.
Dort FCU said there was a mass rush Monday as it opened a new round of short-term loans with no credit checks. "The line was out to the parking lot, all the way out the door," said Ludwigsen. "One of our branches did over 100 loans yesterday."
The $400 million credit union is also offering low-rate Michigan State Housing Development Authority mortgages for people with low credit scores to either purchase or refinance their home loans.
DFCU Financial CU in Dearborn is touting its Career Transition loans, low-cost loans finance retraining for auto workers to find new careers. The $2.5 billion credit union has made $1.5 million of the loans, offered at dozens of other Michigan credit unions, according to Mark Shobe, president of DFCU.
