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Senator Brown’s input at roundtable heartens GM workers facing uncertainty
By Ed Runyan
LORDSTOWN
With some GM Lordstown workers already having transferred out of the area, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown lifted the spirits of workers still unsure what their futures hold by hosting a roundtable discussion Monday on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
GM announced that the Lordstown plant is on “unallocated” status and will no longer make the Chevy Cruze as of March 8, leaving the jobs of the plant’s 1,500 workers uncertain.
“It’s time for GM to value the men and women and the community making its machines,” Brown told 15 participants at the UAW Local 1112 Union on Reuther Drive.
Brown was referencing this 1961 King quote given to UAW leaders unhappy about job loss resulting from automation: “A society that performs miracles with machinery has the capacity to make some miracles for men if it values men as highly as it values machines.”
King also said the Civil Rights Movement received “real inspiration and encouragement” from the example of UAW members.
Brown said he continues to push for GM to retool the Lordstown plant and assign it the assembly of the Chevy Blazer instead of the Blazer being built in Mexico.
He is also pushing for GM to assign Lordstown the assembly of electric vehicles.
Brown introduced legislation that would get rid of incentives for automakers to ship jobs overseas after GM announced plans last year to build the Chevy Blazer in Mexico and unallocate the Lordstown plant.
Dave Green, president of UAW Local 1112, said he was “honored that [Brown] took the time out of his day to listen to our members and understand that dignity and work still has a place in America.”
A main focus of the round table was for Brown to hear from the GM Lordstown workers and workers at two companies that work with the plant.
“I think it was important for the senator to hear about the stories of our members,” Green said.
“The senator has been very accommodating and proactive for us. I know that if ... I need to reach out to his staff, he is going to be available.”
Melissa Green of Youngstown, who has worked for Jamestown Industries on North Meridian Road in Youngstown for 14 years making bumper assemblies for the Cruze, was one of the panelists.
The unallocation at GM leaves her future uncertain.
“We have a lot of people in their 50s and over,” she said. “It’s going to be hard finding new work,” she said.
“I have children I’m raising. I have a daughter in her first year at YSU,” she said.
“Trying to maintain everything is going to be rough.” She also has two children at Cardinal Mooney High School and four at Horizon Science Academy.
Some GM Lordstown workers will begin work at GM facilities in Fort Wayne, Ind., and Spring Hill, Tenn., today. Others will begin working at a GM facility in Flint, Mich., and one in Toledo in February, said Tim O’Hara, vice president of Local 1112.
Having made the decision was hard for many of those people, O’Hara said.
“They like this area, and when GM says people can just get up and move, it has consequences for their life. Not everyone has a personal situation that makes it easy to just pick up and leave. They just want a chance to keep working here.”