Trump’s message of bringing back jobs resonated with workers – but after GM announced it was shuttering the plant, some questioned why they voted for him, Last modified on Tue 15 Dec 2020 14.29 GMT. I watched The Apprentice. “They felt he was the lesser of two evils,” Amato said. Soon after taking office, Trump relaxed fuel-efficiency standards for cars, and that, Green realized, could doom the plant, which made compact, fuel-efficient Chevy Cruzes. Green is definitely not a Trump fan, but he said: “Hillary was a hard person for a lot of people to get behind, for whatever reason. He’s always attacking people. GM had this plan all along.”. Plant closure. Trump puts the heat on GM over Ohio plant closure, AUTO WORKERS SUE GENERAL MOTORS OVER PLANT CLOSURES, GM RESTRUCTURING: PRODUCTION ENDING AT OHIO PLANT THIS WEEK, Delta cancels over 100 flights as pandemic travel soars, NY lawmakers near budget deal to raise income, corporate taxes by $4.3B, Boris Johnson drops COVID passports for pubs. Then she had a knee replacement, and that led a severe infection and more surgery. Before hiring on at Lordstown, Yakim, 52, had worked for more than 15 years at GM’s plants in Baltimore and Wilmington, Delaware, both of which have closed. She was appalled when Ohio’s health director, Dr Amy Acton, widely respected for her efforts to combat Covid-19, resigned in June after conservative lawmakers called her a tyrant and after protesters, some of them armed, held demonstrations outside her home. During the 2016 campaign, he repeatedly proclaimed that he would make American manufacturing great again and would bring back jobs that had gone overseas. But people don’t realize he’s a liar and a conman.”. “It comes down to character, and I wanted to believe Trump has a better character.”, Amato admits that she woefully misjudged Trump. Fiat Chrysler recently announced a $4.5 billion investment in the U.S., while Toyota pledged to commit around $13 billion over the coming years. “He doesn’t understand where the blue-collar workers are coming from. “Trump is a guy who was born on third base, but he acts like he hit a triple.”, Adams said many of the Lordstown workers who supported Trump in 2016 had been in the military and “worried about Hillary taking their guns”. Her sister still strongly supports Trump. After being unemployed for more than a year, he was offered a unionized job at a large bakery, but he never started there because of the Covid-related slowdown. What happens if your student loan payment is late, Today's mortgage rates stay low, not budging | April 1, 2021, Today's mortgage refinance rates see little change as market holds steady | April 1, 2021. She was upset by that. But when you come after me, it can hurt my family. The General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio will assemble its last Chevy Cruze today before closing down for good on Friday. Green helped get parents, teachers and community leaders to write letters to GM – in his office was a 3ft-tall letter, perched on an easel, that kindergarten teachers had written to the company’s CEO, Mary Barra: “Dear Mary. Trump’s repeated promise to bring back factory jobs played well not only in Ohio, but also in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, helping win over many blue-collar voters, who were key to his narrow victories in those states. When he heard workers lauding Trump, he would often get in their face, asking how could they back such a liar, how could they back someone who was trying to kill Obamacare and take away health coverage millions of Americans? TOLDEO, OHIO — Hundreds of workers at four General Motors plants slated to close by January are facing a painful choice: Take the company's offer to … “I just don’t feel he’s going to actually listen to the American people. “They had to sell their houses.” Hundreds of longtime Lordstown workers moved to take jobs at GM plants in Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and Texas – all so that they could continue receiving good United Auto Workers (UAW) wages (around $30 an hour) and accrue additional years toward their pensions. “She’s abrasive,” he said. He doesn’t know when to stop.”, Upset at herself for backing Trump, she said: “I feel like I’m living in a reality TV show.” She added: “Trump, he’s a clown.”, She had thought it would be good to have a businessman as president. There’s the gun person. I’m a man. “Auto manufacturers here had to build so many small cars to balance for all the SUVs. I don’t think our country can handle another four years of Donald Trump.” He added that Trump “has dropped the ball big time” in how he has handled Covid-19. That’s why I can’t vote for him this year.”. “He came after me, and that hurt my kids. Overall, the company said its restructuring plan would result in the elimination of about 14,000 jobs, though it has said some of those workers will be able to transfer to other facilities. “Trump has done a really crappy job [on Covid-19],” Amato said. While running the transition center inside Local 1112’s union hall – and then from home once the coronavirus hit – Amato avoids discussing politics because people are so polarized and on edge. During the Lordstown plant’s final years, Danny Adams was a self-appointed scourge against Trump. Once a month, Green, who is divorced, drives the six and a half hours back to north-east Ohio to visit his parents and 23-year-old daughter. “I don’t like where our valley is. Ohio has actually lost 329,000 jobs since Trump became president, including a decline of 26,000 manufacturing jobs. Including the jobs lost since Covid-19 hit, the US actually has 3.9m fewer jobs than when Trump took office. received $60m in state subsidies, and had promised, when Ohio’s health director, Dr Amy Acton, the greatest jobs president that God ever created. These are people you need to vote for you.” He similarly has little enthusiasm for Biden. “Some of my hardest days of the last few years came when everybody left,” Amato told me. Most weekends he drove back home to visit his wife, son, daughter and parents. A worker refurbishes a passenger train car named the Trump Train in Lordstown on 15 October. “My 401(k) loves him,” he said. Blue-collar workers in those states could again play a decisive role in this year’s election, with many still supporting Trump, but some souring on him – perhaps enough to flip those states to Joe Biden. Trump seemed to be for the little guy. I really thought in my later years, let me see how a Republican would work.”. Trump is expected to visit Ohio this week. “I had my reservations about him. She wanted to transfer to another plant to obtain a 30-year pension, but around the time Lordstown closed, she was suffering from stomach problems and needed a gall bladder operation. “He wasn’t in office long before he announced he would do away with the Cafe [Corporate Average Fuel Economy] standards,” Green said. I don’t know what’s happened. So it should be no surprise that he was keen on Trump’s talk of saving factory jobs. She’s still on medical leave, uncertain if or when she’ll be able to transfer. Here’s how it clawed back. “He’s a bully who speaks out the side of his mouth and probably has the mentality of a 12-year-old,” Adams said. “A lot of people like how Trump is trying to do things, but I think they feel he’s got to stop with some of the lying and some of the things he says.” At the same time, she praises Trump’s outspokenness. “He is somebody who is more on our side,” she told me. There’s the abortion person. The UAW, in a tweet, thanked the president for “fighting alongside” the union “against GM,” saying it planned to leave “no stone unturned to keep the plants open.” The union has sued the automaker over the closures. There had already been production pauses because of part shortages between 2014–2016. “These guys who are in their 70s are just so out of touch with a whole different generation,” she said. GM announced the restructuring bid as it shifts its focus to SUVs, trucks and electric vehicles. Legal Statement. Vennetti is ambivalent about Biden. The company had already scaled back workers at the Lordstown plant, and this closure saw 1,500 workers, the … GM announced it was closing its mammoth plant in Lordstown, Ohio, in November 2018 and ever since Amato has been ladling out advice to the 1,700 laid-off workers on such matters as how to obtain jobless benefits and how to qualify for government assistance to pay for college courses. When the GM plant closes for good on December 23, so will Jamestown Moraine. “I thought some people had moved away from him [Trump], but they have all of a sudden gravitated back to him. He said they [GM] were going to stay. Broken promises and alternative facts: how Donald Trump failed Ohio – video. GM's plants in Baltimore and Warren, Michigan, are also scheduled to close this year, and the company's last plant in Detroit will close in January 2020. The GM plant closure is also expected to leave more than 8,000 American workers jobless in Lordstown and the surrounding area, as well as cut out about $8 billion in economic activity in the area. During the 2016 campaign, Trump had considerable support in the Lordstown plant even though surrounding Trumbull county is traditionally a Democratic stronghold and even though UAW members, stretching back to Franklin Roosevelt’s time, have tilted heavily Democratic. Did he not understand the fact that Dave Green had no control over this?” Amato said. Union officials estimate that 30 to 40% of Lordstown’s workers voted for Trump. General Motors Co. will recompense the state of Ohio $28 million in tax incentives following the closure of its plant in Lordstown, Reuters reported on Tuesday.The automaker announced it … And that’s all before the pandemic. We’re going to make America great again. A plant in Canada is also expected to close. Ohio Gov. Market data provided by Factset. Green is mystified about why so many blue-collar workers think Trump has done a good job on the economy. Let’s get some change. That’s what really bothered me.”. “He says things that some politicians say shouldn’t be said.”, Harris, 47, remembers when the Mahoning Valley, with well-known companies like Youngstown Sheet and Tube, was teeming with blast furnaces, rolling mills and coke batteries. To her mind, one of Trump’s best policies is his push to keep jobs in America. ©2021 FOX News Network, LLC. The GM plant, the size of more than 100 football fields, had long been the heart of Lordstown – as recently as 2016, it employed 4,500 workers, and in its 53-year history, it produced 16m vehicles. “He promised that nobody was going to have to sell their homes. “I don’t really want to vote for him either,” she said. Pictured is the Fisher Body plant marquee … Vennetti, 57, had racked up 25 years with GM when the Lordstown plant closed. “When he called out Dave Green, that was huge. Before Covid-19 hit, Trisha Amato spent her weekdays behind a modest, ebony-colored desk, running the “transition center” that helps laid-off General Motors workers pick up the shards of their lives. He also didn’t like that Trump once said GM’s Lordstown shutdown “doesn’t really matter” because “Ohio’s going to replace those jobs, like, in two minutes”. “If we can get more jobs, then more people would have more money and then we can push to raise wages.”, Harris is from a family of Republicans and has an intense dislike of Nancy Pelosi. I just felt Trump was more business-qualified … I thought he would support blue-collar people.”, But Markovich has turned against Trump, especially after the Lordstown plant closed – he thought Trump did little to save it, despite the reassuring words in his Youngstown speech. Green says he wrote twice to Trump after GM announced the closing. 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