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TOLEDO, Ohio – The major restructuring of General Motors and the planned closures of five North American plants in the coming months are also putting thousands of jobs at auto parts suppliers at risk.
While GM expects that almost all of its US blue-collar workers whose jobs are being cut have the opportunity to settle in factories that create jobs, this will not be the case for many members of the company. supply chain that manufacture parts, drive trucks, work in warehouses and keep GM factories in operation.
For most of them, there is no safety net.
"They have nowhere to go, they are just unemployed," said Dave Green, a union leader near Youngstown, where GM plans to close a factory that makes the compact Chevrolet Cruze in early March. .
GM's labor agreements guarantee its workers transfer and transfer rights, but this is not the case for the vast majority of suppliers, even when workers are represented by unions.
"We are lost in the fray," said Brian Shina, who lost his job in the supplier plant when GM shut down operations at his Lordstown plant in May, months before announcing his intention to close it. "We have no leverage here."
Dominoes are already starting to fall. A factory manufacturing seats for Cruze and another company specializing in logistics and warehousing for GM in Ohio will also close in March. Just three years ago, these two people had 800 workers.
Green has compiled a list of over 50 other companies whose work is related to Ohio's badembly plant. But it is unclear how much could be forced to remove jobs because many work for other factories and automotive industries.
Despite varying estimates, some economists predict that three or four additional jobs will be cut for every job lost in a car plant. Research shows that auto manufacturing plants and the manufacturing sector in general create more indirect jobs than other industries.
"It's the biggest part of that," said Green, who plans to attend Tuesday's speech by President Donald Trump on the state of the Union, at the press conference. Invitation from Democratic representative Tim Ryan, whose district includes the factory.
Trump, who has pledged to revive manufacturing in the Midwest, has strongly criticized GM's announcement, saying his government is considering cutting GM subsidies, including for electric cars. This is a particularly thorny topic for the president, who has conquered a surprising number of trade unionists of Democratic tendencies during his first campaign.
It is still possible that some of the factories targeted by GM will be reactivated in the upcoming contract negotiations with the United Auto Workers union, which promised to fight closures. This includes the badembly plants of Detroit and Oshawa, Ontario, and transmission plants in Warren, Michigan and near Baltimore.
Albert J. Sumell, professor of economics at Youngstown State University, said the closest suppliers to the factories that were closing down were the hardest hit because they were generally more dependent on these factories.
Workers at a parts plant in Whitby, Ontario, quit work in January to protest GM's decision to shut down its Canadian plant, while another nearby supplier plant has announced that she would be forced to close.
Much of the parts entering the transportation plant near Baltimore come from other states, including South Carolina and Tennessee, and some are delivered from Mexico and Canada, said Guy White, UAW Store President. from Maryland.
"There are all kinds of suppliers, it's huge," he said. "We are getting stuff from all over the world."
Other jobs directly related to the plant are more likely to be compromised, including those that provide machines or sorting parts, White said.
Those who study the automotive industry feel that it is too early to know the full impact of GM's transformation away from cars to focus on trucks, SUVs and EVs.
Some suppliers are expecting to bear the potential losses of GM because they have taken steps to diversify their customer base in the years following the upheaval of the great car recession.
Jamestown Industries, a small company providing Cruze front and rear bumper covers, hopes that its efforts to secure new business will allow its Youngstown plant to continue.
The idea is to add work in warehousing, logistics and packaging outside of the auto industry, said Lawrence Long, vice president of development of the society.
But the factory has gone from three teams to one and is about to lose its biggest customer. Melissa Green, who has been working there for 14 years, is not optimistic and is considering moving into a career in nursing.
She will be able to go to school for free through a state program that helps laid-off workers, but will still need another job once her unemployment benefits are exhausted.
What worries him is what will happen to older workers who are not of retirement age.
"Many of them do not know what they are going to do," she said. "Hope they can find something because they have to survive."
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