GM shows little loyalty to loyal workers at the Lordstown plant

Uncertainty. Change. Trimming budgets. Making do.

It shouldn’t be a way of life.

Bertram de Souza Interview - Lordstown

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In this interview, Editor Todd Franko asks Columnist and Editorial Editor Bertram de Souza to discusses the recent events happening in Lordstown.

Bertram de Souza Interview - Lordstown's Future

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In this interview, Editor Todd Franko asks Columnist and Editorial Editor Bertram de Souza to discuss the history of Youngstown, in light of the events happening in Lordstown.

But once again, after GM workers at the Lordstown plant learned that the company will cease production of the Chevrolet Cruze and indefinitely idle the plant beginning March 1, Mahoning Valley families began to make plans to make ends meet, deal with the unknown and try to move forward.

For a community that has given its heart and soul to the company, that isn’t right. The people of the Valley are not just numbers on a page, but people living, working, growing and trying to build a productive community – the American dream.

GM’s callous decision to reduce or cease operations in American plants, while opening or increasing production in plants in Mexico and China for sales to American consumers, is turning the American dream into pure profit for GM and its stakeholders.

And it’s making life for those in the Valley an unnecessary time of uncertainty, fear and desperation.

The effects reach far beyond the estimated 1,600 workers who will be impacted at the plant; the effects will touch other local companies that GM contracts with in the plant’s supply chain. The damage will continue into other industries and to neighboring communities. In fact, the Center for Automotive Research estimates that there are seven spinoff jobs for every one auto assembly position.

Businesses like restaurants, department stores, grocery stores – businesses where the employees at GM Lordstown would have been spending money – will feel the brunt as well. In addition, several local companies that are directly tied to the plant such as Lordstown Seating Systems, which makes seats for the Cruze, will face the need for layoffs.

This news isn’t new to the Mahoning Valley.

Loss of jobs

Layoffs have already hit the area: Employment at the plant has dropped from about 4,500 workers two years ago, to about 1,500 after two shift layoffs.

The Youngstown community has been sold a bill of goods, all the while they – like the people of the U.S. – have diligently supported the growth of GM.

They supported GM in hard times: when General Motors announced in 2008 that it had lost $38.7 billion the previous year – a record loss for the company – within months, GM received a bailout of $13.4 billion from U.S. taxpayers through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). When GM filed for bankruptcy, it received another $30 billion in government funding to assist with restructuring.

By 2013, the U. S. Treasury recovered $39 billion from selling its GM stake. The final direct cost to the Treasury from the GM bailout was approximately $12 billion.

GM’s Thanksgiving weekend announcement to lay off some 14,200 U.S. employees of General Motors was a great big empty “thank you.”

Make no mistake, this is not about product sales. It is about product dumping. It is about profits at the expense of the people who have grown the company and the communities that supported them.

There are plenty of reasons for GM to stay in Lordstown. Solid business reasons.

The area has important resources that can help GM stay: there’s the Youngstown Business Incubator, the Tech Belt Innovation Center, and the prosperous industries of additive manufacturing and 3D printing.

Instead, GM is taking the road of corporate greed, and the community is getting stomped on.

A major importer of their own brands from China, Canada and Mexico now sold in the United States, GM has versions of the Chevy Cruze and Impala assembled in Mexico and Canada, respectively, and imported to the U.S. for purchase. So far this year, GM produced 726,000 vehicles in Mexico with most of those vehicles shipped to the U.S. for sales to American consumers.

investment decisions

GM’s excess capacity in North America was created by its own investment decisions over the last several years. Leaving U.S. and Canadian plants with low volume is the result of product decisions made by the company.

Lordstown is not a victim of changing consumer demand. It is a victim of GM’s decisions to load up their Mexican plants at the expense of their U.S. plants.

And those decisions continue: GM has moved stronger-selling crossover vehicles and SUVs to Mexico. Those vehicles should have been made here in the U.S. where they are sold.

By disinvesting in U.S. workers and communities, GM is also disinvesting in the consumers they rely on to buy their vehicles. But it’s hard to buy a new truck when you don’t have a job.

This action should serve as a wake-up call for all elected leaders. Relying on corporations to do the right thing does not work. We need tax and trade laws that reward U.S. investment and hold companies accountable for their actions.

They will not go unchallenged by the United Auto Workers (UAW). The UAW and our members will confront this decision by GM through every legal, contractual and collective bargaining avenue open to our membership.

More importantly, we must understand that these companies, including GM, are no longer in trouble. They are recording annual profits in the tens of billions of dollars.

GM’s decision is a slap in the face to the U.S. autoworker. It’s a statement that their trust, loyalty and years of dedication aren’t as important as this year’s profits and shareholder gains and that their sacrifices made during the dark days of GM’s bailout are long forgotten.

Despite tens of billions of dollars in profit, despite concessions during the recession, despite American taxpayers bailing them out, they turned their backs on the UAW members and U.S. taxpayers – the very people who saved them.

We must all be concerned about protecting jobs and keeping them in this country. The UAW calls on those in power to invest now in the working families dealing with this terrible news.

New product

In the Valley, until GM brings a new product to Lordstown or a new company comes in and takes advantage of the existing facility and highly skilled workforce, we must question why a retooling of the existing plant wasn’t being considered as an option by the company.

GM must reconsider its decision to idle Lordstown.

If we want our auto industry to lead in transforming mobility, we must ensure we keep our workers at the forefront of innovation and technology. We must work together to keep manufacturing jobs in this country. It’s an investment in our very future.

UAW members across this country are committed to using every means available to us on behalf of our brothers and sisters at Lordstown, Hamtramck, Baltimore and Warren, Mich. We are committed to investing in the communities they support and in insisting GM return the dedication it has received from the U.S. worker.

UAW members and U.S. taxpayers invested in GM during their darkest days.

Now it’s time for GM to say a real “thank you” to the communities – like the Valley – who come through time and again. Who give their blood, sweat and tears of support to ensure the company remains successful.

Now it is time for GM to invest again in the U.S. – to invest in the Mahoning Valley.

Gary Jones, president of UAW International since June 2018, has spent 43 years as an autoworker. He wrote this column exclusively for The Vindicator.