2 cities, 2 choices

* There are no easy answers when it comes down to fewer jobs or lower wages.

Two unions. Two cities. Two choices.

It's 300 miles up Interstate 75 from Dayton to Saginaw, Mich., but the cities are separated by much more than distance.

Twenty years ago, Saginaw matched Dayton's heavy concentration of automotive jobs, nearly job-for-job, with more than 22,000 auto workers.

Today, it has barely half that.

The story of Dayton and Saginaw is a story of the auto industry - and of two rival unions that don't like each other.

Since the 1980s, the United Auto Workers has rejected efforts to widen the wage gap in Saginaw's auto plants between new and older workers. And job after job has disappeared.

Meanwhile, the International Union of Electronic Workers, the predominant union in Dayton, has agreed to contracts that slashed wages and benefits for new employees. And Dayton has kept nearly all its automotive jobs during the same time period.

Which is better? To live in a city where there are lot of manufacturing jobs that don't pay well? Or a city that has fewer, but better paying jobs?

There are no easy answers.

`It's easy to second guess the decisions made by unions over the last 20 years, but we've all done what we felt was best to save jobs and families,' said Ed Fire, international president of the IUE. `I would love to tell our young members that next year we will bring them up to traditional wages and benefits in the plants, but that would be less than honest."

Main story:

A TALE OF TWO UNIONS
   Dayton's IUE believes the UAW is destroying itself, while Saginaw's UAW believes the IUE has sold its soul to GM

Sidebar:

EXPERT: WAGE SHIFT SAVED JOBS IN DAYTON
   An automotive expert says the foresight of the IUE led to the acceptance of tiered wages, and kept jobs in Dayton.