Ground zero: the impact of the DHL shutdown on Wilmington, Ohio

[dcsmart]

In a segment entitled "The Winter of Our Hardship," Sunday night's broadcast of "60 Minutes" on CBS featured a report on Wilmington, Ohio, the small town devastated by the shutting down of its largest employer, international shipping company DHL Express.

In the midst of the economic crash of 2008, DHL began losing $6 million per day in the United States. As a result, the shipping company began closing down its domestic operations in November. While the carrier plans to continue shipping parcels to and from the US, it will no longer offer ground or air services within the country. DHL is currently in talks with UPS, hoping to set up a contract under which that company would handle DHL's domestic air shipments.
The DHL hub in Wilmington—in southwestern Ohio—was located in the Wilmington Airpark, the nation's largest privately owned airport, 2,200 acres in size and former home to the Clinton County Air Force Base. DHL purchased the Airpark for just over $1 billion in 2003. The facility employed 8,000 workers; Wilmington has a population of 12,000.

"60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley introduced the segment by pointing out that the experience of the Wilmington DHL workers was "part of the news this past week that new claims for unemployment benefits are the highest in 26 years." He added, "Since the economic crash of ‘08, taxpayers have committed to more than a trillion dollars in various bailouts of Wall Street, but not much of that is reaching families in crisis."
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FULL ARTICLE
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jan2009/dhlo-j27.shtml