GM Lordstown plant closing will hurt local school districts

By Randi Weingarten and Alyssa Brookbank

Special to The Vindicator

No matter how many times it happens, no state or community is ever immunized to the pain when a major employer leaves. Northeast Ohio knows the stab-in-the-heart feeling all too well. It’s happening again – this time, last week, in Lordstown. General Motors’ decision to shut down its small-car plant is made all the worse because GM is boosting production to Mexico. It will have serious consequences for families, including students and their schools.

GM’s disinvestment in Lordstown is cruel but, sadly, not unusual. It’s also pulling out of three other U.S. cities and Ontario, Canada, to concentrate on building SUVs and trucks in Mexico. It could be different. A retrofit of the Lordstown plant would enable those high-demand vehicles to roll off the assembly line there. And by so doing, GM would show that it cares about the country that helped it in its moment of need. Retrofitting, not closing, the Lords- town plant would send a message that investment in America, in American jobs and in American communities is what a responsible major American corporation should do.

Huge profits

This is not a case of a dying company with no choice other than to close plants. GM reported a profit of $2.5 billion in the third quarter of 2018. GM made a cold business decision that may reduce its operating costs, but at what human cost?

What happens to a place like Lordstown and the surrounding towns and cities when GM pulls up stakes? Of course the 1,400 workers who always held up their end will lose their jobs, and up to 8,000 more suppliers’ jobs could be lost.

The loss of well-paying jobs throws families into crisis and has devastating ripple effects. The loss of tax revenue from the GM closure will hit the county hard, and the impact on the public schools will be like a bomb. The GM plant creates approximately $800,000 in revenue annually to support the elementary school and high school. That will affect every student, every teacher, every school staff member and the overall quality of education.

School funding

It takes adequate funding and resources to provide our children with a well-rounded, high-quality education to prepare them for the 21st-century world of college and career. Public schools depend on tax revenue to provide schools and students with modern textbooks; computers; white boards; and buildings that are clean, safe and modern. Tax revenue pays for decent teacher salaries and benefits that will encourage our great teachers to stay.

We’ve seen what happens when departing industries or major employers refuse to work with the community to invest in retrofitting plants or retrain laid-off workers. Just south of here, the coal industry provided middle-class lives for thousands of coal miners for decades, until the bottom fell out in the 1960s. The coal companies just walked away, leaving towns and families devastated.

McDowell County, W. Va., was one of those communities left destroyed. For McDowell, losing most of its coal jobs and without alternatives meant no jobs, no hope and no money. Economic devastation hit families hard. The dismal effect on the county in general, and the public schools and their students in particular, was profound and has lasted for decades. The consequences of poverty affected kids’ ability to concentrate in school and learn. Seven years ago, the AFT spearheaded Reconnecting McDowell, a public-private partnership to provide kids and families with what they needed to survive and thrive – essential academic, social-emotional and other services and programs. The county shouldn’t have been abandoned or ignored in the first place.

Similarly, in Massena, N.Y., while union-government actions helped save the Alcoa plant, many manufacturing jobs have been lost. To help lift St. Lawrence County, the union-led People Project developed a coalition of community partners to strengthen, enhance and sustain the county.

Funding our future

The key, though, is to avert disaster rather than having to put the socio-economic pieces of a community back together after it has been devastated. We must fund our future.

The Lordstown community wants GM to stay and retrofit the plant to produce the larger vehicles. GM has depended on the town and its people for 53 years. Lords- town families stood by GM in good times and bad, turning out high-quality cars, decade after decade. In return, GM shouldn’t turn its back on the community and the loyal workers who made the company great.

Randi Weingarten is president, American Federation of Teachers. Alyssa Brookbank is president of Lordstown Teachers Association.