Many in Janesville were hoping to get a hybrid passenger car or the new Chevy Volt, but that vehicle will be built at a plant in Lordstown, Ohio instead. The cuts will effect about 2,600 employees at the Janeville plant and will have a tremendous rippling effect across many Rock County area supporting businesses. The moves will save GM about $1 billion per year.
No more I-told-you-so’s….no more worrying about somebody earning more money and getting better benefits…..no more blaming the unions....no more calling Janesville a GM town. Based on the comments posted in the "Sound Off" anonymous column in the Janesville Gazette over the past years, quite a few people should be happy about this.
Quote of the Month
JG Excerpt:
Not everything associated with GM was positive for Janesville, however. This has always been a blue-collar place, and our education level lagged because young people didn’t need to earn degrees to earn good wages. The image of a working-class place without much character, culture or class spread, but it wasn’t wholly unwarranted. – Scott Angus, Gazette Editor
February 28, 2008:
During his press conference today, a reporter asked President Bush what his “advice” would be to the “average American” who is “facing the prospect of $4 a gallon gasoline.” Bush replied, “That’s interesting, I hadn’t heard that.”
Janesville Gazette article here.
Chicago Tribune article here.
Capital Times article here.
Channel 3000 here.
Doyle: A kick in the gut.
17 comments:
This is a sad day for Janesville and for me personally as a 35 year employee. Searching for villans or conspiracies is of no value. We dodged the bullit many times over the years. We always seemed to have the right product (sometimes big, sometimes small) until now. If GM still had the market share of 20 or 30 years ago a new product would be put in Janesville. For whatever reasons, consumers have turned to foreign and non union vehicles (sometimes big, sometimes small). It is sad for Janesville, for GM, for Ford, and for Chrysler.
No conspiracy.
People have been talking about the big SUV's gas mileage for years and corporate GM would just shrug it off by saying let the market dictate. Well, the market dictated... and this is what we have.
Over the Memorial weekend, a friend said "it's about time America started thinking about conservation and buying smaller cars", my response was "IF gasoline plummeted to $1.50 a gallon tomorrow, everybody would be back in line buying up those gas guzzlers - it's not about conservation."
Corporate GM failed...miserably. Some blame government for not having an energy policy....but GM was the one without an alternate plan for energy.
It's about the jobs, and the opportunity to earn a decent wage with just a H.S. Diploma or less. It looks like alot of people were offended by that. Yet, from some of the comments at the newspaper, it appears like an education didn't help them at all.
Corporate GM shafted the union. There will be over 6,000 full time jobs gone forever because of this.
I don't blame the newspaper for GM closing but the Gazette and their political allies were brutal to the union for years. No support at all from the community.
GM once built locomotives, and trains through their Electro-Motive division. They shed that when rail fell out of favor. Now,the railroad industry is in a resurgence due to its far greater efficiency relative to trucking and autos. Admiral Hyman Rickover predicted in 1957 (!) that electrified rail would have to replace autos and trucks for the most part as we ran out of oil. If GM had had half of his vision and long term thinking, the Janesville plant would be retooled to build trains, and would have a market, and be able to retain the high paid manufacturing employees. Unfortunately, we have ceded train equipment manufacturing largely to the Europeans, Japanese and Chinese.
Great great idea, Josh. Both commuter and freight rail will be coming back big time in the near future. That factory just might be put to use some day but I fear not until corporatists feel safe to come back to Janesville. They will wait until the local organized labor union is thoroughly dismantled so they can take advantage of a hungry and unleveraged star labor force.
If the blog on the Gazette is any indication....this town is in for some serious hurt. I can't believe the comments in there. Upwards of 10,000 jobs to be affected and people think it's nothing or just don't think it'll affect them. Wake up call, it's going to hurt........alot. Ryans comments are shallow (but what does he care right?), and where is Sheridan!?
You could tell who's who in Janesville by reading their comments. The most upbeat people about it are the same people who loaded up their anonymous columns for years with anti-union hate speech. When they say "it's gonna hurt a little but we'll get past it, and be better, etc." they're hiding a giddy gloat. Sheridan must be devastated, but that's no excuse! Where is Sheridan??
The loss of the GM plant is going to hurt Union Pacific and Wisconsin and Southern Railroad, which have depended on the plant for freight business shipping cars and car parts to and from Janesville. I hope these railroad companies do not abandon the lines, which will be critical in any railroad revival. Two rail lines will be affected, a WSOR line that links to Chicago's north suburbs via Fox Lake, and the Union Pacific line, which links the northwest Chicago suburbs via Harvard.
If the rail lines are abandoned and sold off, the cost to replace them may prohibit restoring rail links to Janesville, which will be needed as oil runs out. Rail tracks outlast road beds by a factor or 2 to 5 times and do not rely on petroleum derivatives for their construction and maintenance as do roads.
Then if we lose these rail connections because GM plant died and caused the railroads to abandon the lines, Janesville will truly be isolated and may die a slow painful death. There needs to be reuse of the myriad dead manufacturing in this town, and it needs to link to rail.
Rep. Sheridan is out of the country this week. However, he is in contact with Governor Doyle, local leaders and staff: http://www.gazettextra.com/news/2008/jun/04/wheres-mike-union-head-out-country-announcement/
Mike Sheridan is the former head. Brad Dutcher is the new.
You are absolutely right with the anti-union talk still going on. At the newspaper blog, morons are blaming the high wages, benefits, etc. They're saying that Janesville would close anyways if gas was $1.50 a gallon.
The high gasoline prices does seem like the convenient truth behind it all, but if 2,000 people are building violins and wood becomes ultra-scarce, do they close up shop or do they improvise and find a substitute so thay can continue to build a product? The educated folks drawing big bucks at Corporate GM turn out to be nothing more than greedy clock-milking pencilpushers with ZERO vision.
Thank God for the union, otherwise these workers would have been left with NOTHING. It's Janesville I'm worried about, and the workers at non-union shops that will be left holding the bag because of extemely poor planning by GM.
Actually Sheridan is still UAW President until July 1 then Dutcher gets sworn in. But make no mistake GM is gone. They will not bring in another product here. Think about the whole thing. Where has GM been dumping money? The announcement yesterday stated something about 17 or 19 'new ' products. Those products, "global compact" cars. GM hasn't made a profit in North America since 94'.
Do the math. GM is no longer an American company, it's a global one. Those 'new' products will be made by cheap labor in China then exported here. GM wants out of North America completely. The only reason trucks are still made in the US is because they can't import them.....yet.
I see this as a betrayal of the highest order. GM was founded and made it's bones in the US. They will surely take everything ie: tax breaks, free money for this that and the other thing and anything else they can get their hands on, but they are no longer loyal to this country or it's people. That is the way of the global economy, no loyalties, just where can I get more cash. Loyalty used to mean something but sadly that is no longer the case. And that I think hurts more than anything, with me being of the older generation. Watching this once great country being destroyed by the very companies we once helped build into greatness because of greed.
Oh and it seems Red Ink Rick W got himself a nice $15 million dollar bonus for the 4 closings he dished out yesterday.
If all those so called worker friendly liberals had bought union and returned the GM market share, Janesville would be needed for a hot selling car. They continue to buy non union while the Cobalt at 36 mpg is the highest mpg non hybrid compact and costs $10,000 less than the Prius. But no, they would rather bash GM, bash the union, bash America, and rationalize their elite anti American worker attitudes. That includes Obama and Doyle supporters. Go to Madison and see all the Obama stickers on non union vehicles. Doyle is now threatening to blackmail GM over state funds. It is as if he wants our jobs gone earlier. Why does our union continue to work for the very politicians who harm us the most.
I agree with anonymous 9:01. Solid American companies are fleeing for cheap labor under the guise of interacting with the world by way of "globalization." The promise of all the trade agreements for America was the idea of opening their markets for our products. Nobody put too much thought into water seeking it's own level, as in our economy spiraling down to compete with organized sweat shops, slave labor and fully unregulated business environments.
America is being turned into a full-blown corporate state by politicians who are willing to sell out public and private institutions that protect workers, pensions and civil rights. It's an abstraction of true free market capitalism and liberty.
As our country crumbles, we are left with unethical and misguided politicians who are beholden to their campaign contributors. Conservatives and liberals in Washington are birds of the same feather when they're legislating us stakeholder shares in the corporate alternative, forcing our complicity in this abstraction. It is downright evil I believe, and anti-american.
Why America has no hope in the global economy. Can you live on$1.50 a day?
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/apwire/465e8a1b655b88d7dd49d37bc1ecbda9.htm
I agree with the last 2 comments to a point. However, no one held a gun to anyones head and made them buy Toyota or Honda. They did not pay less for those vehicles than for a quality UAW built GM car with equal or better economy. Those buyers are the ultimate reason for the closing.
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