Moraine GM truck plant to close by 2010

[AngryOldDem]

http://www.whiotv.com/news/16470684/detail.html

MORAINE, Ohio -- General Motors Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner has announced that production at the Moraine Assembly plant will end by 2010.

Wagoner said the plant in Moraine is one of four that will be closing. He said employees were told Tuesday morning.

The Moraine plant employs about 2,500 workers and produces the GMC Envoy, Chevrolet Trailblazer, Saab 9-7X and Isuzu Ascender.

The plant employed about 4,100 workers until mid-2006, when GM eliminated the third production shift based on slowing sales for SUVs, which have been hurt by higher gasoline prices.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Yesterday I posted a thread that mentioned Dayton's sagging economy. Today, things got worse.

This is a severe, but not totally unexpected, blow.

Strickland is expected to comment. What he can say, though, I have no idea.

[MeDeMax]

1. they bail out Bears Sterns using 20 billion tax payer dollars

and he wants to make tax cuts to be permanent.

But they could care less about - college students, veterans & GM employees.

[VolcanoJen]

2. I just read this at Dayton Daily News

Their link here:

http://www.daytondailynews.com/b/content/oh/story/business/2008/06/03/ddn060308gmweb.html

I can't imagine a worse event for my hometown. This changes everything. :-(

[vinylsolution]

3. Why the GM plant workers....

... haven't lynched the management, is a total mystery to me. They have deliberately plane-crashed this great company by refusing to build the compact, fuel-efficient vehicles that 21st century American drivers are screaming out for.

Toyota, Honda, Nissan et al have been doing this for years, and they make a few bucks along the way.

But Detroit's CEO's have successfully managed to eliminate a few thousand more American manufacturing jobs, which was the real corporatist plan all along.

[Kolesar]

4. On the contrary, GM built and builds compact, fuel efficient vehicles

...Saturn SL1, Chevy Cavalier, Chevrolet Cobalt, heck my Celebrity got 22mpg city.

I think that there is something wrong with the "perceived value" of domestic brands. Some of it is union bashing run amok. Quality had been trailing the best of the Japanese, and think the public's perception of quality is weird. People rely on anecdotes. Big Toyota's quality has been slipping of late.

And there is a big gob of Toyota transmission fluid on my driveway right now from a two year old Toy.

GM made money on the products that their customers liked--big vehicles. Even Toyota struggled to sell their smallest cars. Cars like the Corolla and Tercel were only about 2% of their sales. The Toyota Echo failed in the US market and Toyota withdrew that product--because people were not buying them.

I think GMs biggest sin was lobbying against efficiency standards. I think they just didn't want to be bothered.

[Steelworker In OH]

5. I make

Door and Body seals for the Moraine Plant. My factory is losing jobs at an alarming rate because we are 80% GM business, and most of that is the Truck and SUV Lines. We're a proud union shop, and we have a great workforce, just alot of idiots at our head office that seem to think truck and suv business will make more profits. We're located in Bowling Green OH, so we are close to alot of assembly plants, theres no reason why we shouldn't be booming with business prospects.

It sickens me that the auto industry is plumeting so badly. My wife has already been laid off, and I'll be out the door sometime in the next couple of weeks.

[AngryOldDem]

6. My best to you and your wife.

And welcome to DU.

ON EDIT: As you may have heard, the Moraine plant is closing sooner than expected. As if that was any great shock. Just this week GM rejected a tax-break option offered both by Moraine and the state to keep the plant open.

The tax-break option is particularly sad because Moraine is a solidly blue-collar town that could little afford to make such an offer. But GM has been the city's lifeblood, and the closing will probably kill it. And, since DHL is looking to pull out of Wilmington, this part of the state will really be suffering. The hits -- literally and figuratively -- just keep on coming. It will be interesting to see if people in this part of the state finally vote with their economic survival in mind. I don't see how they really have any other choice.

[Steelworker In OH]

7. Thanks

for the welcome and the concern.
Alot of shakeups are happening in the auto industry, and most of it is because of the shakey economy and the oil war that has been plauging us for several years. As I said, my plant is mostly GM truck and SUV business. We have an entire department (around 140 people at full go) dedicated to window seals for every truck and suv GM brands. We're losing business because of several plant closings, not just Moraine. It's terrible that so many have to suffer because the current administration is more interested in lining their own pockets than helping the blue collar workers thaty need helped so badly. They continously bail out the airline industry, but pay no attention to the auto industry, which has far more of an impact on the US economy.

My wife's family lives in that area of the state, alot of her family is employed by the steel plants down there. The economic state of that entire Dayton/Cinci area is in jepordy because of the Bush Admin's ignorance and lack of caring for the economy. Hopefully steps will be taken over the next 4 years to help with the woe's we are feeling in this part of the country. Ohio has a great workforce (like many other states) and we really need dug out of the pit Dubya has thrown all of us into.

[Kolesar]

8. They continously bail out the airline industry...

Corn producers get $7 billion or more/year for "price supports" and other subsidies.

How about the weapons industry? The defense budget is > $500 billion/year: that budget and the CIA satellite budget is a "subsidy" for the Boeing/Lockheed/Raytheon stockholders.

I feel for you. Been seeing this for decades.