GM deal leaves optimism

LORDSTOWN, Ohio (AP) – Union workers, local government officials and area residents are more optimistic about northeast Ohio's economy after learning that this week's deal between General Motors and the United Auto Workers included a commitment to build new cars at GM's assembly plant here.
" Our largest employer will continue to be an economic engine," Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber executive vice president Reid Dulberger said. "Everyone in the (Mahoning) Valley can exhale."
Union workers at the sprawling GM assembly complex here have been worried about the plant's future since production of Chevrolet Cobalt and Pontiac G5 small cars ends after the 2009 model year.
The UAW represents about 2,400 workers at the Lordstown assembly plant, which is the biggest in the region, about 40 miles southeast of Cleveland. About 1,200 workers at an adjacent fabricating plant and about 500 in various nearby feeder plants are also UAW members.
Others in northeast Ohio's Mahoning Valley, which includes Youngstown, were concerned about the direction of the local economy if production halted at the Lordstown plant.
" You can't sell houses if there's no one to buy them," said Elaine Clipse, who runs a construction company in the area with her husband. "It's all a domino effect."
The nearby town of Campbell suffered when GM offered buyouts to about half its Lordstown employees in 2006, said mayor John Dill. Locals are much more optimistic of the region's economic future now, he said.
" As General Motors goes, that's how the entire community goes," he said.
GM and the UAW's tentative deal on a new contract ended a two-day national strike on Wednesday. On Friday, workers learned from union fliers that the agreement included promises to build the subcompact Gamma in 2010 and the larger Alpha in 2011. Analysts have said the two are GM's most important future cars.
The cars were among GM's commitments to build current or existing products at 16 of its 18 U.S. assembly plants, according to the UAW summary of the tentative contract. Without the new vehicles, the Lordstown plant could have closed.
Analysts had speculated that GM Lordstown would land the Volt, an electric-powered car, but that model went to the Hamtramck plant near Detroit instead.
The cars are "bona fide vehicles," and not just carrots to help smooth union voting on the contract, said Jim Graham, president of United Auto Workers Local 1112 at GM Lordstown.
" What I would be excited about is if these cars are wave-of-the-future cars," said John Wolkonowicz, senior auto analyst for North America for Global Insights in Lexington, Mass. "It sets the plant up for a nice long run."
The plant could produce the cars for up to 12 years, he said.
The union will hold briefings on Friday and next Saturday at Lordstown, and members will vote the following week. The UAW expects all of its local unions to vote by Oct. 10.
Even though the agreement includes a tiered wage structure, that's still better than losing the whole plant, said Lordstown Mayor Michael Chaffee.
" We've had enough Black Mondays," he said. "This is a very good Friday."

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