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Town faces life without GM

1,080 workers must find new careers

In this picture provided by GM worker Kim Clay, an unidentified employee watches as the last sport utility vehicle, a GMC Envoy, rolls down the assembly line the GM Moraine Assembly plant Tuesday during the final shift at the plant. (Kim Clay / The Spokesman-Review)
In this picture provided by GM worker Kim Clay, an unidentified employee watches as the last sport utility vehicle, a GMC Envoy, rolls down the assembly line the GM Moraine Assembly plant Tuesday during the final shift at the plant. (Kim Clay / The Spokesman-Review)
By JAMES HANNAH Associated Press

MORAINE, Ohio – General Motors Corp.’s financial woes have GM workers around the country worrying about what life without GM might be like. The 1,080 hourly workers at the automaker’s sport utility plant in this Dayton suburb are finding out. For them, life without GM began Tuesday. That’s when the automaker pulled the plug on the plant that over the past 27 years has spit out cars, trucks and SUVs, helped pay mortgages and college educations, and provided a security blanket in turbulent times.

“The news was devastating at first,” said Jackie Wilson, a 39-year-old mother who has spent 15 years at the plant. “It’s all I’ve known.”

GM and other U.S. automakers are mired in a sales slump because of the economic downturn, tight or nonexistent credit, and lack of consumer confidence. So far this year, GM alone has announced 11,000 U.S. layoffs.

Stress on the workers at the Moraine plant has been mounting since June, when GM announced it would close the plant because high gasoline prices were driving consumers away from the SUVs made there.

Other GM plants could soon be facing a similar fate.

In Janesville, Wis., GM ceased making SUVs on Tuesday, putting 1,200 workers out of work. The plant will stay open until June to produce trucks along with Isuzu, but only about 50 workers will remain employed for that.

The White House threw GM and Chrysler LLC a lifeline last week, offering $17.4 billion in rescue loans. But the automakers must prove their viability by March 31.

When their uncertain future became a little too much for the Moraine workers, they slipped into a “quiet room,” a refuge from the clatter and whine of the assembly line, fork trucks and dolly trains that would soon go silent. And a “spiritual reflection” room was set up for workers to take their lunch hour to pray or meet with ministers, who trooped into the plant to offer spiritual balm. For some workers, the plant was more than just a workplace. Scott Hurst, whose mother and grandfather also worked there, spent 14 years at the plant.

“It was the people that actually made it a great place to work. You come in every day and you had your friends,” said Hurst, 35. “That made it interesting.”

GM employed 19,000 workers in the Dayton area in 1999, before spinning off its Delphi supplier division. Tuesday’s closing of the SUV plant left 572 workers at a GM engine plant the automaker owns jointly with Isuzu.

“This was a huge GM town, and now no more,” said John Heitmann, a professor at the University of Dayton who has taught classes on automobile history and its impact on American life.

Valerie Catchings, personnel director at the Moraine plant, said some of the workers are looking forward to a new beginning.

“Maybe they’re tired of the production work,” she said. “But others – their heart, their soul is with GM, and they just never envisioned any other option.”