The campaign will deploy four coach buses during the week of May 11, 2009 (see routes on succeeding pages). Each bus will operate for three days and make at least nine stops for a total of at least thirty six locations. The objective is to draw community and media attention to the importance of auto supply facilities to communities where they operate. Stops will be generally organized into three styles. One would be a stop at an operating auto supply facility where management and labor would explain and discuss the impact of that facility on its community. Second would be a stop at a city center location where elected officials would join us for the signing of a Buy American resolution and have a short program that details the supply chain importance to that region. There would be a town hall type meeting where we would recruit the general community, elected officials and our AAM/USW constituency to a program that has an educational component along with testimonials from impacted individuals and officials. All of these events would be seeking maximum earned media. We will take Polaroid pictures of participants, to which they will add a handwritten message to the Obama Administration supporting the auto supply chain. We would deliver those thousands of pictures and messages to Washington once the tours were completed. In conjunction with the bus tours, AAM and the USW would assure that each town we visited has enacted our Buy American resolution.
The buses would carry officials from AAM and the USW along with our partner elected officials and supply chain stakeholders. We will recruit individuals who can testify to the importance of the auto supply chain on a region's economy and have them participate in legs of the tours. We also will provide video, public relations and recruitment support prior to and during the tours, including arranging radio and television interviews along the way. We will also launch a frequently updated website to follow the progress of the tours. AAM staff will be deployed to each site to coordinate advance recruiting and logistics for each stop as well as program needs.
After the bus tours, AAM and the USW will hold an Auto Supply Chain Teach-In in Washington, D.C. on May 19, 2009. We are recruiting highly regarded experts, opinion makers, and a selected number of participants from the bus tours to attend this event. Its purpose would be to detail the economic impact of the American auto supply chain and call for an Auto Restructuring Plan that maximizes domestic production, automobile industry jobs, and retains sufficient American Automobile production capacity to take advantage of the eventual resurgence of automobile demand in America.
Click on above flyer to enlarge it
Click on bus schedule to enlarge it.Bus stop locations to be announced.
