From Payday Report: GM Workers May Strike Over Plant Closings
GM’s decision to stop production in Michigan, Ohio and Maryland is a gut punch to the American workers who sacrificed and stood by the company to bring it back to profitability. We will fight this corporate greed and outsourcing with our brothers and sisters at the UAW. In the face of overwhelming selfishness and hypocrisy, solidarity among all working people will be our most powerful tool for the fight ahead. -- AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka
By MIKE ELK
“Honestly, it felt like I got kicked in the stomach,” says 36-year-old Tommy Wolikow shortly after he learned the news of the closing of GM’s Lordstown Ohio plant, which as recently as a few years ago employed up to 5,000 people.
“It’s like I got kicked in my stomach. GM has been very, very important to me and my family,” says Wolikow, whose father worked at the plant for 42 years and who met his fiance while working at the plant.
On Monday, citing low sales figures on certain models, increased costs due to tariffs, and desire to shift more profitable lower-wage factories overseas, General Motors announced that it was set to permanently close the Lordstown factory, GM”s Hamtramck plant in Detroit and a factory in Oshawa, Ontario. In addition, GM officials announced that they were going to idle two additional facilities – one in Warren, Michigan and another in Baltimore, Maryland.