It started with aluminum foundries and diecasters and lately the list of metalcasters cutting jobs and scaling back operations includes many more ferrous foundries. While business conditions are bad for everyone, it seems that the auto industry’s downsizing is having a sweeping effect on the foundries that serve that market segment.

"Our main customers are General Motors, Chrysler, Ford, Honda and Toyota," Dale Herritz, interim manager of Grede Foundries’ Reedsburg, WI, plant, told a local newspaper. The plant this week began the process of laying off 140 workers, after cutting back 115 positions in two stages last year. The latest cuts are reported to be temporary, but that probably doesn’t bring much confidence to anyone in Reedsburg now.

Having confidence in one’s self and one’s work is essential to happiness and success, and I suspect that (not finances) may be our greatest vulnerability now. This occurred to me when I read about Adolf Merckle, the billionaire who laid in front of a speeding train last week, unable to endure the anxiety of knowing he stood to lose everything because of credit defaults and asset devaluation. Among his holdings is Keulahütte GmbH, a valve manufacturer and one of Germany’s oldest iron foundries.

Life is our most valuable commodity, a gift as we're so often told, and certainly more important than wealth, or comfort, or security. But, believing that and having the courage and composure to live by it in desperate times are quite different.  

I want to be careful not to offend anyone who’s hurt or troubled by the ongoing financial collapse, but it’s a fact that the layoffs we now find so common are not the worst news we’re reading. Recently we learned of a fire in the argon-oxygen decarburization (AOD) gas rack and control rooms of ESCO’s Portland  foundry. I’m thankful no one was hurt. There was another explosion reported at Wollaston Alloys in Braintree, MA, this week. Again, it’s a relief that no one seems to have been seriously hurt.

Not so at Kenosha Steel Castings in Wisconsin. A 46-year old man was pinned between two 3,700-lb castings, and died later of the injuries. It’s the sort of accident that foundry workers and managers know is possible and worry about constantly, and his death is a reminder of the difficulty of this work.

I hope it’s also a reminder that the new difficulties we face are not impossible for us to overcome while we’re living, as I wish Mr. Merckle had been able to conclude. It’s critical to appreciate the difference between what we may have lost and what we still have.