Strickland lobbies for GM plants

Photo

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland (D-Lisbon)

In Lordstown, workers at both plants approved the UAW’s tentative
agreement with GM.

STAFF/WIRE REPORT

Gov. Ted Strickland will be in Detroit on Thursday to lobby for the future of the Lordstown car plant and other General Motors plants in the state.

Strickland will express his desire to “continue the strong relationship that Ohio has maintained with the automotive industry,” said Keith Daily, a spokesman for the governor.

Strickland and Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher are to meet with Gary Cowger, global group vice president for GM, and J. Edward Berry, the company’s executive director of government relations.

The state officials also will be at Ford’s headquarters to meet with Joe Hinrichs, the company’s vice president of North American manufacturing.

Dailey said he didn’t have any information on whether state and GM officials have had any discussions on a potential upgrade to the Lordstown plant. The state granted incentives when GM spent $1 billion to prepare the plant for the 2004 launch of the Chevrolet Cobalt.

GM has told the United Auto Workers that it plans to bring new midsize models and a new subcompact to the plant starting in 2009.

Meanwhile, Lordstown workers complex have joined most other UAW locals in support of a new labor contract.

In voting that ended Tuesday, the tentative agreement was approved at both the Lordstown assembly and fabricating plants. The plants have different UAW locals.

They are among the six locals that approved the contract Tuesday, while two others rejected it. As of Monday, 23 locals had approved the contract and three had rejected it.

UAW officials have said voting is to be completed by today.

Bargainers at local plants, including Lordstown, are continuing to work on local labor contracts. Local contracts cover work rules, outsourcing and other plant-specific issues.

Besides Lordstown, other UAW locals in Ohio voting for the national pact were the Toledo Transmission plant, the Parma Metal Center near Cleveland, a distribution site in West Chester near Cincinnati and the Mansfield Metal Center.

In northwest Ohio, workers at GM’s transmission plant in Defiance voted down the contract by 52 percent. In the Columbus area, Local 969 with 90 members at the ACDelco operation in Groveport also voted against the offer.

In Defiance, word had spread that the factory was one of 15 nationwide that could be on shaky ground.

The contract agreement said the future of the Defiance plant would be uncertain once the products it now makes go out of production in a few years.

“That alarmed a lot of people,” said Dwight Chatham, president of Local 211 in Defiance. He said any worry about the plant’s future was speculation.

The UAW struck GM for nearly two days last month before coming to a tentative agreement Sept. 26.

The tentative agreement requires GM to pay out at least $35 billion for retiree health care, establishes lower wages for thousands of new employees and offers an unprecedented number of promises for future work at U.S. plants.