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GM offers Lordstown workers retirement or transfer

LORDSTOWN — Both union and salaried workers at the five General Motors North American facilities being affected by the corporation’s decision to unallocate — or stop making the vehicle produced there — will have the opportunity to retire or transfer to available positions within the corporation, according to Dan Flores, the global manufacturing spokesperson for GM.

“Salaried employees will have opportunities to apply at existing plants and our hourly employees also will be able to transfer in accordance to relocation policies negotiated between the United Auto Workers and GM,” Flores said. “We have opportunities they can pursue at other operations.”

However, Flores emphasized he does not know the number of positions that will be available at other plants when the Lordstown plant stops making the Chevy Cruze on March 1.

“Salaried employees should talk to their human relations department when discussing possible transfers,” he said.

UAW members will have opportunities for retirements and transfer to other facilities, Flores said. Where the UAW employees can transfer may depend on where they are located because of rules written into contract language.

“We don’t know how many employees will be eligible and will take this opportunity to retire,” he said. “We will fulfill our contractual obligations.”

At this time, GM has not announced any new program to provide incentives for employees to take early retirements.

“We are not announcing a buyout program,” Flores said. “Right now, there are no separation packages.”

In addition to the 1,435 hourly employees at GM’s Lordstown plant, this week’s announcement affects the 1,350 hourly employees at the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant; 265 employees at the Warren, Mich., transmission plant; 253 employees at the White Marsh transmission and electric motor plant in Baltimore; and 2,600 workers in Oshawa, Canada.

The number of white-collar employees that will be affected by the corporation’s decision will be 183 at the Lordstown plant, 194 in the Detroit-Hamtramck plant, 300 at the Oshawa plant, 70 at the Warren transmission plant and 57 at the White Marsh transmission plant in Baltimore.

Flores said these decisions, especially at plants such as the Lordstown facility, have been driven by what has been happening in the North American marketplace, where people are buying fewer small cars and more SUVs and trucks.

“This has been happening over the last three to five years,” Flores said. “This was certainly, without a doubt, a difficult decision, which was driven by changing consumer demand. We are discontinuing these passenger vehicles because consumers are not buying them.”

According to UAW’s national contract with GM, if it is decided by the corporation to close or idle plants due to volume declines or by acts of God, it must review the conditions and their impact on a particular location with the union.

UAW Local 1112 President Dave Green and shop Chairman Dan Morgan are talking to UAW international’s Vice President Terry Dittes in Detroit today about getting a new vehicle for the Lordstown plant.

Dittes on Monday said GM’s decision will not go unchallenged.

“The UAW is looking at all options available through legal, contractual and bargaining means,” said Brian Rothenberg, a spokesman with UAW International.

U.S. Rep. Timothy J. Ryan, D-Howland, on Thursday spoke by telephone with General Motors CEO Mary Barra, saying he expressed his disappointment with GM’s decision.

Ryan said he described to Barra the area’s rich resources, including things like the Youngstown Business Incubator and Warren’s Tech Belt Energy Innovation Center.

“We are second to none when it comes to additive manufacturing and 3-D printing,” Ryan said he told Barra.

Appearing after the phone conversation with other congressional colleagues at a Thursday morning press conference in Washington, Ryan called for elected leaders to act by taking “the bull by the horns” to “reset our economy.”

“We need to reset our economic policy in the United States and put workers right in the center, and then build the economy around that,” Ryan said at the morning meeting in the House Office Building on Capitol Hill.

Ryan said he believes GM’s timing of the announced downsizing, which coincides with upcoming national labor contract talks, could result in competition among local unions.

“Now what’s going to happen is they are going to go into contract negotiations, and they are going to pit the local unions against one another to get the best deal, and the union that has the lowest wage and negotiates the lowest benefits will get the new product,” Ryan said. “And now everyone who got screwed in this process will fight amongst each other in a race to the bottom. That’s how distorted this system is.”

Flores said the decision to place these facilities in unallocated status — meaning they will no longer produce their particular product(s) — was not made because of something the workforce or local unions did or did not do.

“There is a fantastic workforce in Lordstown,” Flores said. “The Chevrolet Cruze is a great product. It has good management and the union has been very progressive. This decision came down to people not buying the Cruze and instead buying truck and SUVs.”

“The Mahoning Valley and Ohio have been huge supporters of GM,” he said. “It is customer interest in purchasing the vehicle that drove this decision.”

Flores said there has been no decision what to do with the GM facility once it stops making the Cruze. Discussions about the future of the facility will take place between GM and the union, he said.

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