REALITY HITS HOME

December 6, 2008 at 12:00a.m.

GM LORDSTOWN LAYOFFS

GM to eliminate Third shift and 890 workers

By DON SHILLING and JON MOFFETT

William Downs thought his future was secure when he transferred from Missouri to the Lordstown car complex in July.

He stepped into a good job, with a good income, fashioning sheet metal for the front of Chevrolet Cobalts. It seemed so secure that he bought a house in Cortland and brought along his wife, stepdaughter and her six children.

“They couldn’t make Cobalts fast enough, and $4 gas was driving the car market,” said the 40-year-old native of Johnstown, Pa. “It seemed like a good place to be.”

Now that future is in shambles.

He is among the nearly 2,000 workers being laid off from the GM complex. He survived the 1,060 layoffs announced Nov. 7 when GM said it needed to slow the assembly line. He wasn’t so fortunate Friday when GM said it needed to trim 890 jobs so it could eliminate the midnight shift.

“It’s going to be tight,” he said.

Marci Emery of Austintown also is wondering what will happen next.

She was one of those hired this past summer during the Lordstown spree to add a midnight shift. GM wanted to boost small-car production because gas prices seemed like they would never come down.

Emery was excited to leave a job at Home Depot for the car plant. Now, she is uncertain she’ll still have her GM job at the end of the month.

“It’s unfortunate, but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. The auto union is doing everything they can to fix this. I just hope and pray for the best,” she said.

Downs joked about his situation and wasn’t mad at GM for taking away his job just five months after moving him from a van plant in Wentzville, Mo. He knows that all car sales are plummeting.

What angers him are the nation’s policies, which he believes ignore manufacturing.

“All of the wealth is being shipped out of this country,” he said.

If auto manufacturers go under, the economy doesn’t have other up-and-coming industries to rely on, other than alternative energy, he said. Those technologies will produce only a fraction of the work that automakers and their suppliers have, he said.

Downs said he doesn’t know what his future holds.

He has worked as a welder, mechanic and concrete laborer, but he is not sure any jobs are waiting for him in a recession.

He was taking university classes before his brother-in-law recommended him for a job with Delphi Corp. in Columbus. He transferred to GM when Delphi ran into financial troubles.

He’s not sure that he’s suited to an office job anymore.

“My wrists are screwed up. After I type for a minute or two, my hands are numb,” he said.

Workers at GM aren’t the only ones affected by the layoffs. The announcement resounded beyond the plant and into the community.

“The whole community is based around small businesses that service General Motors,” said Terri Golden, owner of A&J’s Country Cafe in Lordstown. “It’s going to be very devastating ... everybody in Lordstown is going to be affected by it, not just the General Motors employees.”

Golden has owned the establishment since April 2006. She said her business suffered greatly after GM suspended the third shift in June of that year.

“When I bought the restaurant in 2006, we opened in April and the third shift shut down in June,” Golden said. “We struggled for two years, and now we’re right back where we started.”

Ross’ Food, which sells hot food to many GM workers, will see a significant drop in sales, the owner said.

“GM accounts for about 75 percent of my business,” said Earl Ross Jr. “It will affect me for the next four months.”

Both Golden and Ross said they already started plans to cut operation hours to help offset the losses.

Between the struggling economy and the GM cuts, people will have a hard time spending, Ross said.

“They just don’t know about their job security,” he said. “They’re not sure what they’ll be doing tomorrow, so they’re afraid to spend their dollar.”

Some workers were especially upset about the layoffs considering the state of the economy.

“Right now it’s hard for everybody with the way the economy is,” said Otha Hilson, who works the first shift at GM. “We’re just hoping they [Congress] give [auto manufacturers] the money and we can hopefully bring back the third shift. These people have a right to earn a living just like everyone else.”