CNN: The success of the factory, which Honda says has built 15 million engines from scratch since it opened 23 years ago, has been spread beyond Anna, which lies in western Ohio between Dayton and Toledo.Interesting, she also holds the unions accountable. She's probably right on both fronts.
"Honda's really helped this area as far as housing, retail sales, the restaurant business," said Tim Rogers, who has owned the Inn Between Tavern in Botkins, just up the road from Anna, for 33 years.
"People who are in here at night are also Honda employees. They have more money to spend. My business has been good since Honda came into the area."
The Inn Between's waitress is busy delivering the lunch special of breaded chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans to a stream of customers who work at different places but all seem to know one another.
The banter is raucous and sustained, and when the conversation turns to a proposed federal bailout for U.S. automakers, there is little support for the idea.
"I don't think they should bail them out because ... obviously something's not right in the way they're running their business, and why should the American people have to bail them out if they can't figure out how to do it right?" September Quinn, the busy waitress, said after the lunch rush at the Inn Between.
Today in 100 seconds. Automakers, Uncle Ted.
"People agree with the unions because the workers want to be backed on everything, but then again, there aren't people striving to do their job better," said Quinn, whose father works at the nonunion Honda plant. "They've just got Papa Bear to back them up in any instance, and they keep their job. And you can do that, but I don't know at the cost of what."
