Students to GM: Save the Lordstown assembly plant


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By ED RUNYAN

runyan@vindy.com

LORDSTOWN

Dave Green, president of United Auto Workers Union Local 1112 at General Motors Lordstown, sent about 1,000 letters and drawings from local schoolchildren Monday to Mary Barra, GM CEO.

Among the letters was this one from Jade Shattuck, a seventh-grader at Hubbard Middle School: “I ... wish you guys would stay open because it’s the holiday, and I don’t want any kids to not get any presents for Christmas.”

The letters are the thoughts of children regarding the news that the GM Lordstown assembly plant is due for idling in March, and there’s been no promise the plant will ever reopen with a new product.

Closure would mean the end of about 1,600 jobs. Thousands more lost their jobs when the plant eliminated its third and second shifts in recent years.

Green said about 20 schools have provided the union with about 5,000 letters and pictures from kids in kindergarten through grade 12.

Green will send Barra additional letters today, Wednesday and Thursday, until there are no more.

Green invited reporters to the union hall on Reuther Drive on Monday to see stacks of letters.

“It must be difficult working that hard 52 years [and] all of your hard work goes down the drain,” said “Gabriella, Grade 7, Southington Middle School.” “If there was anything we could do, we would do it,” she told Barra, who is a mother of two.

“This holiday season, my wish is that the GM plant stays open because thousands of people are losing their jobs, which will make it really hard to find that many jobs,” said Allyson Huston, a seventh-grader at Liberty Junior High. “Please consider letting all those people have the jobs they will lose.”

“Nick,” grade 8 in Southington, said, “I have two family members that work for the GM plant in Lordstown. If the plant closes, my grandpa and uncle will not be able to afford Christmas presents for the family.”

Green said the letters are “heartfelt.”

Tim O’Hara, UAW Local 1112 vice president, said GM “is always talking about numbers, but all of these represent a person, a kid with a face.”

The letters to Barra are part of the Drive It Home Campaign, which is run by Green and James Dignan, president and CEO of the Youngstown Warren Regional Chamber.

Green said the letters were part of the campaign before workers knew that GM was going to stop making the Chevrolet Cruze and eliminate their work.

In the planning stages for Bring It Home, area school officials suggested the letters and drawings as a way to encourage GM to keep a product here. Green said he responded to them recently to suggest now would be a good time.