After working, Mal Haley loves to watch the sun’s rays over the Lahva River in Nova Scotia – it is a calming routine after 12 hours of severe warnings and hole.
Halley is watching a sunflower shipment of the sun towards the Atlantic Ocean at her home in her home after a shift overnight at the Michelin Tire Factory.
Once, the river gave the life of the city. Today, Michelin, who keeps Bridge, stands on his feet.
Haley exhausted. Twenty -four hours ago, her three -year -old son William raised him, took him to day sponsorship and communicated with homework today. You have not slept since then.
Throughout her life, Haley called a Bridgeter home. She worked at the Michelin factory for nearly 10 years. Now 28, she spent a third of her life making tires.
Despite the long hours, Haley loves her function. She even prefers work nights. Earn for a living in Michelin allows her to spend time with friends and family – her best friend and uncle work there. Inside the factory, it runs a five -person crew and a 4.5 -meter -made tires -making machine. Responsibility, although satisfactory, satisfactory.
But the stress has been building since January 20, when Donald Trump swore as an American president. It pressures companies to move to the United States, raising fears that Michelin may go south.
Company
In Bridge, 1270 people work in the Michelin Factory. The French king of tires issues checks for more than 25 percent of people of the city’s age.
Stefan Micolan, a professor of economics at Delhuzi University, says that every town is an ecosystem. If the company stumbles, the entire city suffers.
The factory – capable of producing 7500 tires per day – is the axis of the manufacturing industry in Nova Scotia. Rubber is the largest export in the province, thanks to Michelin tires. In 2023, the export of tires to the United States from Nova Scotia It was about $ 1.2 billion.
These tires worth $ 139,000 were exported to the United States every hour throughout the year.
When Trump began talking about the customs tariff for Canadian goods earlier this year, she motivated many questions. Will the work be as usual for the world’s leading tires? Will there be a layoff in Nova Scotia? Or the worst scenario-can Trump fighting the move to the United States?
To date, Michelin’s tires were It spared not to a large extent of Trump’s tariff. But given the fluid events in the past few months, it is not surprising that the Prime Minister in Nova Scotia Tim Houston is currently in France to meet directly with Michelin.
Nova Scotia has three Michelin plants. Since 1971, Bridgewter has been home to the sprawling company complex on the outside side of the city’s business park; Other factories are located in Granton, near New Glasgow and Wtoleville, in the Annapolis Valley.
In approximately a million square feet – 59 hackings of hockey – in size, you cannot miss the Bridgewateer Factory from the 103rd highway. In fact, it has its own exit.
Globally, Michelin is estimated at $ 35.9 billion. Mechoulan believes he can withstand financial success. But it has no commitment. If Michelin withdraws the plug or slows down production, Micolan expects to try Bridgeter “a series of destruction reaction.”
Inside the plant
At 6:15 pm the next day, Haley pulled into the car park in the factory 45 minutes before it is to work. Then it wipes its main card and passes through a disk – one of the few gaps in the fence covered with barbed wire. Above the entrance is a reading sign we make the future.
Haley arrives early because she loves to chat with work colleagues in one of the many restaurants for the factory. It is a small space that wears Michelin chairs, tables, and terms from floor to ceiling. The people you sit with are more than friends. You often see “more than my family.”
Haley is not “very worried” about the future Michelin’s employees. But she realizes that the situation is volatile.
“God knows what can happen,” she says.
Haley trusts the top to sort it. Meanwhile, you will not make the tires themselves.
I grew up, Haley thought of Michelin and Bridgeter as it is intertwined. Everyone knows that it is a tire city. The best friend of her father, Deryck Bolivar, works in Michelin. However, you did not realize “the number of people working in Michelin until you start running.”
“However, at any time I go to Wall Mart, I face someone from work.”
In Michelin, Bolivar was the first president of Haley. His familiar face, along with useful advice and tricks, make adaptation to a new job a little easier.
In one of her first meetings with the team, Bolivar accidentally indicated Haley by the childhood title – Princess. In the factory, the title is stuck for years. Sometimes, she still refers to the name of the princess – as well as a more modern title, a problem.
With anxious times for Canada, Halley remains optimistic. For a sake of hope, she looks forward to Michelin’s investment in Bridge. The factory has just completed an expansion of $ 300 million-194.4 million dollars from Michelin, with the rest of the regional and federal governments.
Michelin “poured a lot of money in our factory,” says Haley. “They will do their best to keep it open.”
Driving new roads
Francois Michelin Nova Scotia chose to be the home of his first invasion of his company in North America in 1969 (there are now 35 production facilities, including six in Nova Scotia and Cibic).
Today, Michelin’s main office is located in North America in Greenville, SC – the state of a conservative republic. The company said in a recent call with analysts, that about 70 percent of Michelin in the United States was built in the United States, but this reaches 85 percent when Canada is included.
Since her arrival in Canada, Michelin has become the largest employer in the private sector in Nova Scotia and decisive trading assets. Throughout the province, 3,600 people depend on the tire manufacturer to feed themselves and their families.
The company offers all employees a specific pension for the tooth, and after one year of work, 3.8 weeks of leave-in addition to free tires.
Its societies and employees want to say that Michelin is generous and absorbent. The amulet does not appear more than Michelin. But the company has also generated controversy in the province.
In 1979 – to the chants of “shame!” In the legislative body – the conservative Nova Scotia government approved an amendment to the Labor Union Law, which has become known as the Michelin Bill. The draft law issued that for the union, any company with multiple sites in Nova Scotia must subscribe to most employees in all locations. The opposition and the public protested the bill in response.
The draft law was formulated during an attempt to conduct a union by the employees of Granton, and Michelin was never mentioned specifically in the legislation. The next day, the bill was approved, a new Michelin factory was announced in Watville.
Nova Scotia Ndp has long announced that if it is elected, this will cancel the Michelin bill. But once he was elected to power in 2009, Darrell Dexter did not follow the Prime Minister NDP. He told the press that “he has no interest in fighting battles that occurred 30 years ago,” he told the press.
The Nova Scotia government has made great lengths to keep Michelin in the province. To build plants, Nova Scotia Crown has spent more money than Michelin itself.
The city’s response
He overlooks the Lahaf River of his office, says the mayor of Bridge, David Mitchell, he believes Michelin is devoted to the city like the employees of the company. He has a strong belief in the company that proves his small city.
Mitchell is more worried about slowing production than closing. For every layoff in Michelin, many people will feel influenced.
“1,200 jobs are about 8000 to 12,000 indirect jobs,” he says.
Whether people who drive 100 trucks enter and leave the factory daily, or local restaurants and shops, more than just plant workers will bear the burden.
Mitchell is similar to the current political and economic tension of an animal that stores food for the winter. The only difference? The animal does not know if the winter is already coming.
“Do you start getting rid of your money and preparing for slowing down?” Mitchell asks.
“Or is it all a trick that will disappear?”
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