The automaker is shutting down production at its Lordstown plant, home of the Chevy Cruze — affecting 5,400 people
Workers who had jobs related to the General Motors Chevy Cruze factory stand in front of the Lordstown, Ohio, assembly plant. Left to right: Cicero Davis, 54, worked at GM for two years. Scott Mezzapeso, 47, worked at Magna, a GM supplier, for eight years before he was laid off last summer. Nicole Thompson, 24, worked at GM for a year and was laid off in 2017. Mike Bajnok, 58, worked at GM for nearly 10 years. He tried to do a retraining program but dropped out after the first week.
“To be 100 percent honest, I thought I would be laid off for a few months and then go back to work,” Mezzapeso said. “At 47, I’m too old to go back to school.”Most jobs Mezzapeso sees pay half of what he used to earn. His 1999 Chevy Tahoe gets lousy gas mileage, making it difficult to take a low-paying job a long drive away.
When Mike Bajnok lost his $30-an-hour GM job last summer, he followed the state of Ohio’s advice and used TAA to enroll in a program to become a “CNC machinist,” the technical term for a computer numeric controlled machinery worker who can do a little programming to run big robots in factories.“I just didn’t get it. From Day One, I was lost,” says Bajnok, who is 58. “The instructor told us to put in the flash drive. My skills are so bad, I had to ask him how to do that.
The state of Ohio has set up a fully staffed transition center at the United Automobile Workers Local 1112 union hall in Lordstown, where experts such as Alexander help people through their options for life after GM. Many workers he meets walked out of high school and into the factory. They have never made a résumé before, let alone filled out an online job application.
A GM spokesman said that these were “tough decisions” and that “virtually any employee who wants a job will have a job” at another plant, although that does not apply to suppliers, and he mentioned only 2,700 available positions right now — amid layoffs at five big plants. But Davis was at GM for only two years before the layoffs hit, and he was still considered a temporary worker, meaning he was paid about $20 an hour versus $30 for permanent employees. He felt less loyalty to the company and was one of the few workers at the plant driving a Honda, not a U.S. brand.
'It takes time to sink in' At the union hall transition center, Alexander, the workforce development assistant, asks workers a litany of questions about their skills, how far from home they are willing to travel for a job, whether they would consider going back to school and how much money they need to pay their monthly mortgage, car payment, child care and more.
GM workers click most often on job postings for customer service representative, store clerks, warehouse jobs and “team assemblers,” according to an analysis by Indeed for The Washington Post. All of those jobs have an average annual salary of under $35,000. Many homes and store fronts in the area have a poster up that says “Drive it home” and “Support GM Lordstown,” with an image of Ohio and a road running through it.
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