Chrysler Twinsburg Stamping Employees Rally, Carry Signs of “Honor Contracts: Keep Plants Open”
Chrysler plant backers rally in Twinsburg
Senator, mayor say they will try to find new uses for complex if automaker proceeds with closure
By Jim Mackinnon
Beacon Journal business writer
May 11, 2009
TWINSBURG: U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown said he will
seek ways to keep the Chrysler stamping plant open once the automaker
emerges from bankruptcy proceedings as hoped in the next 60 days.
But
if the plant remains on a list of Chrysler factories to be closed in
2010, Brown and city Mayor Katherine Procop said they will try to find
new uses for the massive building that employs about 1,000 people. The
factory is currently shut down and scheduled to reopen in June.
Brown
and Procop spoke late this afternoon before a standing-room-only crowd
of hundreds of members of United Auto Workers Local 122 inside the
union hall across Chamberlin Road from the stamping plant. The rally
was called after court records filed April 30 showed the Twinsburg
plant is among eight factories that the reorganized Chrysler expects to
close.
Government
and union officials said they were told that no factories were going to
be closed and that the court filing stunned them.
Today’s
rally-like event included workers holding signs saying such things as
”Honor Contracts: Keep plants open,” ”Save Our Jobs” and ”Plant
closings destroy communities.”
Brown said workers should qualify for federal aid if the stamping plant closes.
”We will find ways to keep this plant open. No promises, of course,” the Ohio Democrat said.
Brown
noted that as part of the federal government’s supervision of the
bankruptcy proceeding, the United Auto Workers ”will own most of
Chrysler.”
Procop said she will travel to Washington, D.C., later this week to meet with White House representatives.
”We
can’t put any more people on the unemployment rolls,” she said. ”We
are going to take your story down there. We are going to take it
directly to Washington.”
Afterward,
Procop said work continues on a newly announced task force charged with
trying to save the plant or find new uses for it. Five working groups,
made up of task force members, have been formed, she said.
Procop also said state economic development officials have received a serious inquiry about the plant.
David
Floyd, a tool and die maker who has worked at the stamping plant for 24
years, said Americans need to realize that they have to buy and support
American-made products.
The 59-year old Salem resident said he believes the plant will end up closing.
Floyd also said he doubts Chrysler will be out of bankruptcy anytime soon.
He
noted that auto parts maker Delphi Corp. has been in bankruptcy for
years. ”I can’t believe in 60 days they can settle anything,” he said.
Tracy
Sibley, a 45-year-old forklift driver who has worked nearly 14 years at
the plant, said if the factory closes for good, that will hurt the
Twinsburg economy.
Sibley,
who lives in Akron, said she was glad to learn firsthand that Brown,
Procop and others are fighting to give the plant a future.
”It
was a little relief off me,” she said. ”Hopefully, they will go down
there [Washington] and fight for us and come back and say we’re going
to stay open. The mayor is fighting for us. She really loves
Twinsburg.”
