COLUMBUS – State and national leaders are expressing disappointment over General Motors’ announcement Monday that it will stop small-car production at its assembly plant near Youngstown and consider closing it for good.
Thw automaker today announced its decision to cut up to 14,000 workers in North America and possibly shutter up to five plants, including one in Lordstown.
My statement on the situation in Lordstown. pic.twitter.com/Wx2u9V8iPu
— John Kasich (@JohnKasich) November 26, 2018
Republican U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, who said he was “deeply frustrated” with the carmaker, says he is urging the company GM to bring a new product to the plant or at least reassign some of the production and employees to GM’s plant.
“For decades, workers in the Mahoning Valley have made a commitment to GM, and today GM let Northeast Ohio down,” Portman said.
“The workers at Lordstown are the best at what they do, and it’s clear once again that GM doesn’t respect them. Ohio taxpayers rescued GM, and it’s shameful that the company is now abandoning the Mahoning Valley and laying off workers right before the holidays,” Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown said on his official Twitter feed.
GM owes the community answers on how the rest of the supply chain will be impacted & what consequences its disastrous decision will have on the Valley & Ohio. My office stands ready to do everything we can to help these workers. This decision is corporate greed at its worst. -SB
— Sherrod Brown (@SenSherrodBrown) November 26, 2018
President Donald Trump says his administration and lawmakers are exerting “a lot of pressure” on GM. Trump says he’s being very tough on GM chief executive officer Mary Barra. He says he told the company that the U.S. has done a lot for GM and that if its cars aren’t selling, the company needs to produce ones that will.
The plant in Lordstown that makes the Chevrolet Cruze compact car is on the possible closure list. Trump says GM needs to “get a car that is selling well and put it back” into the plant.
At a rally near the plant last year, Trump talked about passing by big factories whose jobs “have left Ohio,” then told people not to sell their homes because the jobs are “coming back. They’re all coming back.”
“We want GM to know that the auto workers at Lordstown are the best at what they do and that the Lordstown plant needs to be part of the future of GM and the American auto industry,” said Lt. Governor-elect Jon Husted, who will visit the Detroit Auto Show in January with Governor-elect Mike DeWine to make a case to GM about the future of the plant.
The GM Lordstown Complex employs about 1,500 people.
Labor union leaders and others hope they can persuade the automaker to find another use for the Lordstown factory.
But its outlook is bleak after GM announced production of the Chevy Cruze would stop in March.