| Ohio losing 1,000 jobs, but biggest plant safe Tuesday, June 2, 2009 3:13 AM THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH GM coverage
ONTARIO, Ohio -- A very bad day for Ohio could have been much worse. General Motors yesterday announced it will cut about 1,000 jobs in the state, with 860 coming at a Mansfield stamping plant that will close next June. Smaller losses are expected when a distribution center in Groveport closes in December, claiming 81 jobs, and when a Parma powertrain operation that employs 46 is shut down a year after that. "Everyone did what they could to keep it open," Paul Williams said just outside the Mansfield plant, where he has worked for 40 years. The plant is located in Ontario, just outside the Mansfield city limits. "It's a very emotional time in there. It's a very emotional time for this community." But Ohio's largest GM plant, in Lordstown, will survive. The factory, though idled until at least mid-July, is scheduled to build the new Chevrolet Cruze compact. In all, GM announced it will close 14 plants and three parts centers nationwide. The automaker made the announcement as it entered bankruptcy with the intention of emerging as a much leaner company. But most of Ohio's GM operations will remain open, including: the Parma metal center, which has about 1,000 employees; Defiance foundry, with more than 1,500 employees; the Toledo transmission plant, with more than 1,300 employees; and Lordstown, with more than 2,200 employees, down from a capacity of more than 4,300. For all the plants, the employee numbers are a moving target, which has led to conflicting reports. The Mansfield plant, for example, has 1,337 workers, of which 409 have already been laid off and 68 are on sick leave, GM said. That would leave 860 employees actually on the job. But employees said the number is lower. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, whose district includes Mansfield, said he wants Obama administration officials to tour the plant and "look our workers in the eyes to tell them why they chose to close their plant." Williams, the GM employee, said he felt betrayed that his government is overseeing a plan that will eliminate thousands of U.S. jobs. "I think all the American worker wanted was a level playing field," he said, adding that some of his fellow employees expect to lose their homes. The tough decisions that led to the bankruptcy and closings will force equally tough decisions by local officials, including Williams, who is on the Ontario City Council. He said the income-tax revenue from plant employees is 33 percent of the city's total income-tax proceeds. Another city official said the tax loss would be about $1.6 million out of a $10 million general-fund budget. "It'll kill this town," said Robert Tammer, who has worked at the plant 30 years and was arriving for second shift yesterday. "Mansfield, Ontario, everything." Williams said he doubted the ability of Richland County's social-services network to handle the influx of unemployment cases. About 8,300 county residents already are without work, including about 300 workers at the Ontario GM plant who were laid off in January. Richland County's April unemployment rate of 13.2 percent was more than double its April 2008 figure (6.5 percent) and a third higher than the statewide average (10.2 percent). The county has lost a significant number of jobs since 2001 -- 244 at AK Steel, 320 at Mansfield Foundry, 297 at Burner Systems International and 261 at Crane Plumbing. But nothing on the scale of the GM plant. "It's a very big hit. It did not come as a big surprise, but it is a big disappointment," said Mike Greene, president of Richland Economic Development Corp., a nonprofit organization. Local officials had hoped the plant's high productivity would spare it, but GM's closings of assembly plants in the eastern U.S. has made it increasingly costly to ship Ontario-made parts, Greene said. While not easy during a recession, the development corporation will work to help retrain workers and lure more jobs while studying whether another employer might be able to move into the massive plant, or at least use parts of it, he said. This is the most recent of several devastating days for Ohio's auto industry, continuing a decline that will bring the company's Ohio work force below 10,000. The closest parallel may be from November 1986, when GM said it would shut down 11 plants nationwide, including an assembly plant in Norwood and a metal stamping plant in Fairfield, with a total of 6,500 Ohio workers. At that time, GM should have been taking the steps to avoid what happened yesterday, said Peter T. Ward, chairman of the department of management sciences at Ohio State University. "GM's leadership made short-term decisions that made good business sense, and left the harder job -- changing the structure of the company and the way products are made -- to somebody else," he said. He thinks GM's survival depends on its ability to develop and market fuel-efficient vehicles. This may be an uncomfortable shift for a company that padded its profits by selling SUVs and oversize pickups. With the closing of the Groveport center, GM no longer will have any significant presence in central Ohio other than its dealerships. The biggest losses in central Ohio came in late 2007 when the West Side parts plant closed. The plant, operated by GM and then by Delphi Corp., had a peak of more than 5,000 workers. Just around the corner from the vacant plant is Haydocy Pontiac Buick GMC. Dealership owner Chris Haydocy has watched the neighborhood struggle to deal with the loss of jobs, and now he will watch as GM tries to emerge from bankruptcy. "It's a sad day, and I guess it's a new chapter," he said. At the Mansfield plant, the pain was much more immediate. Todd Leatherow, a 13-year GM worker, sat on his motorcycle outside a local ice cream shop and wondered aloud what he will do next. He figured he has six to 12 months to figure out what to do next. The Ontario High School graduate, who had hoped to retire from GM, now realizes he will probably have to move away to find work. "This is devastating to this community," he said. Dispatch reporter Jonathan Riskind contributed to this story. |
Happy 4th of July 2010 !!
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Ohio losing 1,000 jobs, but biggest plant safe
http://columbusdispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/06/02/gm_ohio.ART_ART_06-02-09_A1_F0E25A2.html?sid=101
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