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By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Detroit-based General Motors Co. has emerged unscathed from two days of Democratic debate in its hometown, while the White House's hopes for 2020 have missed an opportunity to criticize it for the important issues. job cuts in recent months.
Republicans and Democrats, the largest US automaker has been sharply criticized since its announcement last November that it would stop the production of five badembly plants in North America and eliminate about 14,700 jobs. He was preparing for virulent attacks when the Democrats traveled to Detroit for the second round of debate on Tuesday and Wednesday.
GM even sent fact sheets to reporters touting the company's US employment and its $ 23 billion investment in US facilities since 2009.
On Tuesday, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Tom Perez, held a press conference in front of Warren's transmission plant, just north of Detroit, to end operations on Thursday, "to highlight" unfulfilled promises. Trump outfits. "If I'm elected, you will not lose a plant … you will have jobs again."
But the automaker was barely mentioned and largely avoided the most direct criticism.
On the first night, not one candidate had mentioned GM's name, even though the moderator had specifically questioned the mayor of Bend, Indiana, Indiana, about GM's dismissal and his plan for retraining workers.
He replied that beyond training, workers in jobs in the market economy should be allowed to "organize, because a job is a job and a worker is a worker".
Julian Castro, former mayor of San Antonio and top US housing official, said Wednesday that job cuts at GM were an example of economic uncertainty for the country, though without wanting to criticize the builder more directly .
"Just go ask people who have just received the notice that they're going to be fired by General Motors, or ask a lot of people who sleep on the streets in big cities and small towns in the United States." , or ask the fast food workers that I joined a few weeks ago work for the minimum wage and can not support their families or pay rent, "said Castro.
And when former Vice President Joe Biden spoke of GM, it was not about removing jobs, but to remind Michigan voters of the 2009 bailout under the administration of the President of the time, Barack Obama, whom he had been number two for eight years. years.
"I was part of the organization – and our administration – that pushed General Motors into bankruptcy, thus saving tens of thousands of jobs in that state," Biden said Wednesday, during the meeting. second night of debates.
Candidates sometimes mentioned job losses in the auto sector or jobs in the manufacturing sector that disappeared due to automation, but generally left out direct references to GM, including the head office is located a few blocks from the venue. "Michigan, you will not find immigrants from one wall to another, but robots and machines from one wall to another," said entrepreneur and philanthropist Andrew Yang. According to government data, US and foreign automakers have created about 25,000 jobs in the United States since the beginning of 2017.
For its part, GM indicated in the fact sheet distributed to journalists that it created more than 2,000 additional jobs in other US factories and offered jobs in other factories at almost all hourly workers in factories at the end of production – but without extending them. offers thousands of employees who have lost their jobs.
GM did not comment after the debate.
(Report by David Shepardson in Washington, edited by Soyoung Kim and Jonathan Oatis)
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