1. piece of the Canadian flag.
CEO and founder John He-
witt said he got the idea for the
Liberty name while traveling
down West Sahara Avenue in
Las Vegas, where a giant Stat-
ue of Liberty replica stands.
“Everyone in Vegas knows
exactly where that is,” said He-
witt, 58, who grew up in Lin-
coln Park and was raised in
Buffalo, N.Y. “We did a trade-
mark search. There was no
company that had the name.
The Statue of Liberty he
saw in Vegas also inspired his
idea for the wavers. If that icon
could come to life, he thought it
would be an invigorating way
to build the brand.
“If they see the Statue of
Liberty at the same location
every single day, they’re going
to remember it,” Hewitt said.
Hewitt previously owned
tax preparation company
Jackson Hewitt, which went
public in 1994 and was sold in
1997 for $483 million to Cen-
dant Corp.
Hewitt founded Liberty Tax
in 1998 in Canada and opened
his first office in the United
States in 2000. Liberty now op-
erates in every state and Cana-
dian province. It hires about
5,000 wavers per season, an
average of two per store.
The private company,
which is phasing out Uncle
Sam and focusing on Lady Lib-
erty costumes, says it has pre-
pared taxes for 5 million cus-
tomers since 2000. Officials
said business is up this Janu-
ary over last by 12% and reve-
nues are up by 31% during that
time period. The company
didn’t disclose its revenue.
Liberty Tax charges an
average of $150 per return.
Michael Bernacchi, a mar-
keting professor at the Univer-
sity of Detroit Mercy, says the
practice of companies dress-
ing someone in a costume to at-
tract attention isn’t revolu-
tionary.
“They’ve found a way to in-
expensively communicate
their message,” he said.
“Whether they close the deal,
who knows? At least it draws a
smile for me.”
Liberty Tax service spokes-
woman Nina Cunningham said
the statue-outfitted wavers
gave the company instant
brand recognition.
“We really credit them for
building the brand,” she said.
“For every two hours we have a
waver, we get a customer.”
The only requirement for
the job is having a lot of energy
and enthusiasm, she said. Wa-
vers are encouraged to bring
MP3 players or radios. They’re
also provided with hand warm-
ers at some locations.
For Robert Shipp, 61, of De-
troit, the job is something to
sustain him until he finds
something more permanent.
“Things are tight in De-
troit,” said Shipp, who carried
a radio to listen to jazz as he
stood at the Liberty Tax on
Clairmount Street near the
New Center area in Detroit.
“It helps pass the time,”
Shipp said. “It’s just a small
thing, and it’s seasonal. It’s in-
come. I’ll go back to finding
something at a temp agency.”
Hinson, who takes three
buses to get to work from his
home, stands in the elements
for four hours at a time for $8
an hour.
He wears three layers of
socks, thermal underwear, a
jacket, gloves and hat. As
much as he likes his job, he still
sends out three to four résu-
més every morning.
Hinson said an occasional
driver will yell obscenities or
drive too close for his comfort.
But for the most part, he
stays warm and likes to elicit
reactions — and of course,
have people pull in to get their
taxes done.
“There’s no reason to be dis-
mal,” he said. “I count my
blessings.”
Contact MARGARITA BAUZA at
313-222-6823 or
mbauza@freepress.com.
LIBERTY R
Costumed
wavers try to
get reaction
From Page 10A
PATRICIA BECK/Detroit Free Press
From left, Robert Hinson, 53, of Roseville, Sean Garvin, 33, of Detroit
and Jerice Wright, 20, of Eastpointe try to get attention for Liberty Tax.
K
DETROIT FREE PRESS | WWW.FREEP.COM SATURDAY, FEB. 9, 2008 11ABUSINESS
all benefits, except accrued
pension, can receive
$140,000.
The window to accept a
deal opens for most of Ford’s
hourly workers Feb. 18 and
ends March 17. Workers at a
few plants that have closed
under Ford’s restructuring —
St. Louis, Atlanta, Norfolk,
Va., and Edison, N.J. — have
been eligible for a deal since
Jan. 22. They must decide by
Feb. 28 whether they will
leave.
Informational meetings
are being scheduled to edu-
cate workers about why they
should take the latest, boost-
ed offers, which have been
sweetened for workers who
met certain conditions.
For example, skilled-
trades workers, who general-
ly make a higher salary than
other autoworkers, previous-
ly were offered an early-re-
tirement package that includ-
ed a lump-sum payment of
$35,000 and other benefits.
But that payment has been
bumped up to $70,000.
At a parts plant in Saline,
which Ford is in the process of
selling to Johnson Controls
Inc., three educational ses-
sions on the buyouts will be
held Tuesday, according to
the Web site for UAW Local
892.
Since 2005, Ford has re-
duced its hourly workforce by
36%, or 35,500 workers,
through early-retirement and
buyout offers. Those workers
who remain on the job, then,
have already passed on a deal,
making this latest deal a
tougher sell.
Several of those workers
told the Free Press they were
not interested in taking a
deal.
“I’m not considering it,”
said Joe Fabrizio, 36, a mar-
ried father of two. Even
though his younger brother,
Jason, took a buyout last year,
Fabrizio said he wants to re-
tire from Ford, just like his fa-
ther did last year.
Tony Monteleone, 43, a
worker at the Dearborn
Truck Plant, said Ford has
been offering buyouts and
early retirements for so long
that there are plenty of horror
stories circulating through
the plants about workers who
took a deal, blew all their mon-
ey and are now struggling to
make ends meet.
“They can’t even find a
job,” he said.
As of Dec. 31, Ford had
57,900 hourly workers in its
Ford operations and 6,100 in
its parts-making subsidiary,
Automotive Components
Holdings, LLC. That was
founded in 2005 as a tempo-
rary business unit to sell or
otherwise dispose of facilities
formerly owned by Ford’s spi-
noff, Visteon Corp.
But given the sour U.S.
economy, which automakers
and analysts expect to be a
drag on auto sales for at least
the first half of 2008, Ford de-
cided last year that it needed
even fewer workers and
would need to cut deeper.
“We will continue to re-
duce our employment consis-
tent with our restructuring to
operate at the lower demand
over the next few years,” Ford
Chief Executive Officer Alan
Mulally said in November.
Many analysts have as-
sumed that Ford is reducing
its hourly employment to take
advantage of its new 4-year
labor contract with the UAW.
Under that deal, the automak-
er can pay new workers a
starting rate of $14.20 per
hour, or about half the salary
of outgoing workers.
The lower wage will be lim-
ited to about 20% of Ford’s to-
tal UAW workforce.
However, Mulally said in
late January that it’s not clear
whether departing workers
will be replaced in these tough
times.
“We just don’t know,” he
told the Free Press after the
automaker released its pre-
liminary financial results for
2007. After losing a record
$12.6 billion in 2006, Ford re-
ported a net loss of $2.7 bil-
lion last year.
Under Ford’s turnaround
plan, the automaker aims to
be profitable by 2009.
Contact SARAH A. WEBSTER
at 313-222-5394 or
swebster@freepress.com. Staff
writer Jewel Gopwani contributed
to this report.
FORD R Automaker
seeks to cut 8,000
more hourly jobs
From Page 1A
idate its dealer network.
Chrysler has around 30 name-
plates.
“For us to be an effective
company at this ballgame, all
three of our brands belong un-
der one roof for marketing and
production so we can allocate
the product, planning and de-
veloping resources so we can
effectively develop world-class
cars and trucks,” Press said.
Cerberus Capital Manage-
ment acquired a majority
stake in Chrysler in August,
making the Auburn Hills com-
pany the first privately held
automaker in more than 50
years. Since then, Chrysler’s
new management has moved
with lightning speed, slashing
as many as 12,000 jobs on top
of 13,000 already planned for
elimination, cutting four prod-
ucts and cutting production.
The company has indicated it
wants to cut less-profitable
fleet sales by perhaps as much
as 200,000 vehicles.
Chrysler, which was on
track to lose $1.6 billion last
year, sold less than 2.1 million
cars and trucks in the United
States last year, a 3.1% de-
crease from 2006.
“We always thought at
Chryslerwewerea4-million-a-
year company,” Press said. “So
we had 32 products because
we’re a 4-million-a-year com-
pany. We had plants running
to have a 4-million capacity.
We had the whole overhead,
we had our employment based
on selling 4 million cars a year.
But guess what? At retail,
we’re selling a million and a
half.
“Wake up now.”
Chrysler sees the opportu-
nity to compete domestically
against global automakers
that use scale to save money
but must, in turn, use one-size-
fits-all approaches to design.
Press stressed Friday that
Chrysler has not set a goal for
how many vehicles to elimi-
nate, nor has it said how many
dealers it wants to eliminate.
“All we did with the dealers
is we gave them some theoret-
ical, conceptual examples,”
Press said before his speech.
“This is all going to be in dia-
logue with our dealers. So,
there are no numbers. … We’re
still working through what
those products should be. But
we do know that we don’t need
11 SUVs.”
He indicated that Cerberus
will help dealers consolidate by
sharing expertise in real es-
tate, taxes and financing.
Steve Landry, Chrysler
executive vice president for
North American sales, told the
Free Press that Chrysler is
working with dealers on what
the right number of dealer-
ships is for different markets.
“The smartest thing I think
we’re doing is looking at how
many service stalls do we need
… then backing into how many
dealerships we need,” he said.
“In some cases, like Florida,
you may have a dealer that has
150 service stalls, and that may
equate to two or three dealer-
ships that we don’t need.”
Over the past four years,
Chrysler has seen the consoli-
dation of 250 dealers through
its Project Alpha, he said. Still,
the Chrysler brand has about
110 stand-alone dealerships, he
said.
“The good news is that
we’re addressing this now for
something that is four or five
years down the road and not
coming in 2011 and saying, ‘We
need to get this done by next
year,’ ” he said.
Timing could help the Gene-
sis plan, said Mike Maroone,
president and chief operating
officer of AutoNation, noting
that commercial real estate
prices have “stopped skyrock-
eting” and the auto industry is
in a slump.
But how long the process
takes could depend upon how
much Chrysler is willing to
spend to encourage deals.
“It depends on how much
capital they put into it,” he said.
“They did some tremendous
things transforming the labor
agreements. It took … billions
and billions of dollars to do
that. We’d like to see them put
significant capital behind this,
because it’s not going to get
easier two years from now.”
CHRYSLER R Auto executive says streamlining a must
From Page 10A
Getting tax help
T Lower-income taxpayers can
get free help by visiting
www.accountingaidsociety.org
or by calling 313-647-9620.
T The Community Tax and
Resource Center, at 7000 W.
Fort in southwest Detroit,
offers free income tax prep-
aration for low-income house-
holds. Call 313-554-2884 for
appointments and information.
T AARP offers a volunteer
program for preparing free tax
returns for seniors and other
low- to middle-income taxpay-
ers. Call 888-227-7669 or go to
www.aarp.org/taxaide for sites
throughout Michigan and to get
more details on the rules.
T To find tax volunteer sites or
other tax information through
the Internal Revenue Service,
call 800-829-1040.
T Military members can use the
Volunteer Income Tax Assis-
tance Program at military sites.
Also, see IRS Publication 3,
Armed Forces’ Tax Guide. It’s
available at www.irs.gov. Or
order forms and publications by
calling 800-829-3676.
Details on the offers
Ford Motor Co. is offering an
array of buyout and early-
retirement packages:
T Under a special termination-
of-employment program, retire-
ment-eligible workers who
volunteer to leave the company
and forgo all benefits except
accrued pension can receive a
$140,000 payment.
T For workers who have at least
one year of employment, the
special termination program
calls for a payout of $100,000,
with the worker forgoing all
benefits except accrued pen-
sion.
T Under an educational-oppor-
tunity program, workers with
one year of service are eligible
to receive up to $15,000 in
college tuition for up to four
years. Workers who take part
in this program can receive
medical benefits and half of
their regular pay while enrolled
in school.
T Under another educational
program, workers with one year
of service are eligible to receive
up to $15,000 in college tuition
for two years. Workers who
take part in this program can
receive medical benefits and
70% of their regular pay while
enrolled in school.
T Workers could opt to set
aside $100,000 in a family
scholarship program to be used
for spouses, children or grand-
children.
T Workers 55 and older who
have 30 or more years of ser-
vice are eligible to receive a
lump-sum payment and begin
retirement immediately with
full benefits. For production
workers, the payment is
$50,000. Skilled workers would
receive $70,000.
T Workers 55 and older with 10
or more years of service would
be provided a fixed level of
income for life, which varies
according to each employee’s
service with the company.
T Workers with at least 28
years of service are eligible to
take a leave for two years until
they reach 30 years of service,
when they can retire as normal.
During their leave, the workers
would receive 85% of their pay.
F11A_09_0D_X#black#broad#single