GM Town 'On Edge Until Bush Gives Us the Money'

The local economy has never fully recovered, and the way some here see it, losing the Lordstown plant, which opened in 1966, would amount to a knockout punch.

This week, Forbes magazine ranked Austintown, the Youngstown suburb that is home to the largest share of GM employees, as the fifth-fastest-dying town in America.

In neighboring Warren, home to the second-largest contingent of plant employees, Mayor Michael J. O'Brien said 4,000 of 21,000 houses in the city are vacant. So desperate is it for new residents that the city has offered home buyers incentives of as much as $1,000 to buy a house. Some cost as little as $50,000. In part because of job losses at the auto supply manufacturer Delphi, the city is laying off 20 policemen and 11 firefighters, he said.

"The Lordstown plant is fundamental to the economy," he said.

One of the most frustrating aspects of the potential Lordstown closing is the fact that the efforts of the union and the company at the plant represent, in some ways, an answer to the industry's many critics.

The Lordstown plant builds the small and relatively fuel-efficient Chevrolet Cobalt, and the company had begun investing $350 million at the plant to build the Chevy Cruze, a car expected to be capable of 40 miles per gallon. The union has agreed to have new workers receive $14 an hour -- about half of the wage for previous employees -- and about 600 Lordstown employees work at that rate. The Lordstown plant is also, partly through the cooperation of the union, one of the company's more productive plants.

"Thirty years ago, this was probably the most radical plant in North America," said local union chief Jim Graham. "We would stop the line if there was a leak in the ceiling. Now we understand that the enemy is not the management. It's the foreign" competition.

Indeed, at the auto workers union hall here, prominent signs direct visitors in foreign cars to park at the back of the lot. At a recent Christmas party, someone parked an Isuzu at the front door, and a voice came over the intercom: "If the Isuzu is not moved, it will be towed." It is feared that the fact that so many people drive foreign cars in Washington reflects a lack of interest in saving the U.S. carmakers.

A recent union newsletter at another GM plant noted that a majority of new cars and trucks bought in the District are from foreign makers. "So that gives you an idea right there that they really don't care what happens to the Big Three auto industry."

There are about 262,000 jobs in the Mahoning Valley counties of Trumbull and Mahoning, according to the Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber. So losing 15,000 or 20,000 jobs with the plant closure would not represent a death blow, officials said. Even so, they said, it would be devastating.

"It's not just economics," said Sherry Linkon, co-director of the Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown State University and co-author of "Steeltown U.S.A.," a history of the area. "Symbolically, GM was our last stand to be a major manufacturing area. It was the last really big American business. And the idea that this is an American industry is meaningful around here."

Already about half of the 4,250 workers at the plant are scheduled to be laid off. Maybe, some say, they'll get called back when the economy picks up.

Ron Kline, 50, works as a "dingman" on the line -- he fixes small dents that occur during manufacturing. He said he and his wife have thought about Nevada recently.

"But I hear they're having problems now, too," he said. "You try not to think about it too much, otherwise it will drive you crazy."

He was once, in the early '80s, laid off for 18 months. When the unemployment benefits ran out, he went on welfare. That experience, he said, was hard, but this is harder. He and his wife, a church janitor, have two children in college.

"This is much scarier," he said. "If this thing goes belly up, there won't be anything left. And now we're just waiting."