LAST CALL FOR A UNION TOWN

Everyone in Kokomo, IN, is discussing the fallout from the bankruptcy filing last autumn of Delphi, the auto parts maker that is Kokomo's No. 2 employer. With Delphi cutting jobs and slashing wages, there are plenty of opinions about what it all means, but not much consensus. One Friday night in July, Darrin Zadra, a local contractor, talked about how his business has ground to a halt. Michael Spear, a real estate developer, said he sensed opportunity: There will be a lot of new retirees around soon with buyout checks to spend. Kokomo, it turns out, is a good town to visit for a close-up look at how 21st-century globalization is redefining not just business practices and the myth of the American dream but the social contract between workers and employees--and between neighbors forced into competition with each other. After all, it is in places like Kokomo (pop. 45,000) that the big abstract stuff that has long been roiling American business--from the huge costs of health insurance and pension plans to the decline of organized labor--moves from the theoretical to the painfully real.