Film evokes emotions from laid-off GM workers

DAYTON (AP) — Hundreds of autoworkers who lost their jobs when General Motors closed an Ohio sport-utility vehicle plant cheered and cried Wednesday at a screening of a documentary film that profiled their lives during the plant’s final days.

Some of the workers lingered outside the Schuster Performing Arts Center in suburban Moraine, south of Dayton, admiring the final vehicle produced at the plant — a white GMC parked on the sidewalk.

Workers then streamed into a theater to watch the HBO documentary: “The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant.” The 40-minute film is scheduled to debut on Labor Day.

About 1,600 GM workers and their families attended the screening, and an additional 900 people filled the seats.

Many of the workers, casually dressed in jeans, T-shirts, ball caps and tennis shoes, picked up free popcorn-filled paper bags and chilled bottled water distributed in the lobby.

“Some of you have told us this has been the hardest year of your life,” co-producer Steven Bognar told the crowd before the screening. “It’s not just the assembly community. It’s all the suppliers, the people who made parts for that plant, the people who drove those trains. So many people have been impacted by the closing of that plant. We respect that. We honor that.”

About 1,100 workers lost their jobs when GM closed the plant in December. Bognar told the workers he understands if some of them had mixed feelings about seeing the film.

“We’ve tried to bear witness to what you went through so the world will know, and we thank you for helping us tell the story,” he said.

Cheers erupted when one of the interviewed workers referred to the plant as a great operation. But the theater grew silent when another worker, tears rolling down his cheeks, said the reality of the plant’s closing didn’t sink in until he had to give up his badge. And there was a hush when another worker referred to the plant as a gentle dragon lying down to die.

Former plant worker Kathy Day of West Alexandria called the film “awesome.”

“It makes me feel proud,” the 47-year-old Day said.

Day said she hopes the film is an eye-opener for the public.

“I hope they can see that we are real and we care about our jobs and we care about American-made products,” she said.

Jeff Conklin of Springboro said the documentary was “very painful to watch.”

“I’m not a big crier, and I was tearing up,” the 45-year-old Conklin said.

From last June through December, a film crew, led by producers Bognar and Julia Reichert, shot footage of workers outside the plant, in nearby bars and restaurants, and even in the workers’ own cars. The workers themselves shot footage inside the plant.

“This in a way is a chronicle of the end of the blue-collar middle class,” Bognar said.

Louis Carter, who worked at the plant for 15 years, applied the bar-coded sticker to the final vehicle that rolled off the assembly line.

“It was kind of sad, knowing that that was going to be your last job coming off the line, and after that you were going to be laid off,” said Carter, of Harrison Township.

GM said it closed the plant because high gasoline prices reduced demand for the vehicles built there. Moraine officials hope to attract another business to the site. They’ve gotten a few nibbles, but no solid prospects.

Meanwhile, the sprawling 4.4 million-square-foot complex, once a beehive of activity, sits vacant and silent.

“It was a sign of prosperity,” said Kate Geiger, 45, of Centerville, who worked at the plant for 24 years. “When you drove by there, it was almost like a cornerstone of our society in Dayton. Now, part of the foundation has been ripped out.”

Elsewhere, things are slowly starting to look up for the beleaguered auto industry. Shoppers are snapping up cars and trucks so quickly that GM said Tuesday it is boosting production for the rest of the year to keep up with the “cash for clunkers” demand.

GM said it would add 60,000 vehicles to its production schedule in the third and fourth quarters and bring back about 1,350 laid-off workers. GM will add shifts to factories in Ingersoll, Ontario, and Lordstown.