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| DATE | 2020-11-29 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] The effects of industiral shutdown on the
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/gms-closed-lordstown-factory-spawns-a-wave-of-industrial-migrants-11606674412?mod=hp_lead_pos7
wsj.com
GM’s Closed Lordstown Factory Spawns a Wave of Industrial Migrants
Michael M. Phillips and Nora Naughton | Photographs by Maddie McGarvey
for The Wall Street Journal
21-26 minutes
On Zach Sherry’s first day of work at the General Motors Co. factory in
Bedford, Ind., trainers gave a safety presentation that included an
image of a cartoon hand spurting blood from the ring finger.
The overt message was straightforward: Rings can get caught in the
machinery, so don’t wear them on the job.
The symbolism wasn’t lost on the 48-year-old Mr. Sherry, who had
transferred to the Indiana facility after losing his previous job at the
GM plant in Lordstown, Ohio, that shut down last year. The transfer
meant leaving his family behind one state away.
“You just took me 450 miles from my home and you’re telling me to take
my wedding ring off,” he says.
Mr. Sherry is one of a cadre of Lordstown workers turned middle-aged
industrial migrants, venturing out alone in search of good pay and benefits.
Itinerant work has long been common in manufacturing, including people
moving around the country for fracking jobs. Auto workers haven’t been
immune to chasing their livelihoods across state lines, either. When GM
and Chrysler LLC. closed plants as part of their bankruptcy
restructurings a decade ago, workers were moved to the factories that
survived.
The workers in Lordstown, many of whom are multigenerational GM
employees, never planned to be among them. The plant was an example of
American manufacturing might when it opened in 1966, churning out
Chevrolet Impalas, Bel Airs and Caprices.
It has since become a symbol of the economic struggles of those who work
in factory jobs. American auto workers in particular, already losing
work due to advances in automation and shifts to overseas plants, now
also face dwindling job prospects as car makers increasingly look to
move to easier-to-assemble electric models.
Manufacturing jobs have grown during the economic expansion over the
past decade, though the numbers have shrunk over the long term. In Ohio,
the number of employees in manufacturing has dropped 35% since 2000, to
around 660,700 in September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
A few months after taking office, President Trump traveled to
Youngstown, a short drive from Lordstown, addressing blue-collar
supporters who worried their factory jobs were gone for good.
“They’re all coming back,” he said. “Don’t move. Don’t sell your house.”
Instead, cratering demand for the Chevrolet Cruze left the Lordstown
plant without a car to build, and, following a 40-day strike, company
and United Auto Workers union officials agreed on terms for closing the
plant. A large cadre of veteran employees faced the choice between
staying home with their families but uncertain financial futures, or
relocating to other GM plants where they’d hang onto their union pay and
benefits.
When the assembly lines at Lordstown finally stopped, nearly all of the
plant’s roughly 1,400 hourly auto workers were able to find jobs at
other GM plants. The vast majority were in Texas, Missouri, Tennessee
and other out-of-state locations, according to the company.
Some Lordstown workers sold their houses and hauled spouses and children
to their new job sites. About half ventured out on their own, leaving
families and homes in Ohio, according to people in the union who helped
with transfers.
Lordstown Motors Corp., an electric-truck startup that bought GM’s
factory in town, has promised to create jobs for 4,000 to 5,000 workers.
Nearby, GM is building a $2.3 billion battery factory jointly operated
with LG Chem that the companies say will employ 1,100 people.
Neither the battery nor the truck factory has begun full operations. The
UAW will represent battery-plant workers, and Lordstown Motors has said
it’s open to union representation for its workers but doesn’t have a
contract. Still, it’s likely many of the jobs created at both factories
will pay less than those lost at GM.
Veteran GM workers have an incentive to stay with the company. For
decades, good pay and defined-benefit pensions were guaranteed in
contracts negotiated by United Auto Workers for workers at GM, Ford
Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV. U.S. car companies and the
union agreed to eliminate pensions for new hires in 2007.
The reduced benefits paralleled a larger decline in UAW strength.
Membership, which reached 1.5 million in the late 1970s, was just under
400,000 last year.
GM’s Bedford, Ind., facility, which took some 60 former Lordstown
workers, churns out engine and transmission components 24 hours a day.
The company often requires employees there to work seven days a week.
There’s abundant additional overtime for those who want it.
The last Chevrolet Cruze comes off the assembly line at GM’s Lordstown
plant in March 2019.
Photo: Tim O'Hara/Associated Press
The result is that many Lordstown migrants have seen their lives reduced
to work-eat-sleep-work cycles, clocking in and clocking out until they
can rejoin their families.
First shift: Jay Dye
It’s almost like the bright yellow Chevy Cobalt is taunting Jay Dye.
Every day around 7:30 p.m., after another 12-hour shift at the Bedford
factory, Mr. Dye unwinds with a stroll around the Eagle Pointe Golf
Resort, where he shares a two-bedroom rental unit with another transient
GM forklift driver. The route leads him past the home of a GM family
with the Cobalt in the driveway.
The model used to be assembled at the Lordstown factory. The chances are
pretty good that Mr. Dye installed the speedometer or the radio on the
yellow one.
“Seeing that car every day is a kick in the gut,” he says.
Mr. Dye, 45 years old, started out studying special education at Kent
State University. But the $18,000 he expected to earn as a teacher after
college couldn’t match the $50,000 he’d make at GM with a high-school
diploma. So he quit school and, in 1996, took a job at Lordstown, a
ticket to the middle class. In six years he’ll complete three decades at
GM and be eligible to retire with a $3,400 monthly pension.
As rumors swirled about Lordstown’s closure in 2017, Mr. Dye found
comfort in Mr. Trump’s words and in the UAW’s reassurances that union
leaders would press GM to find some use for the plant.
“My whole life I thought Lordstown was going to be there,” he says.
Jay Dye eats birthday cake with son Jaxon at home in Ohio in September.
Mr. Dye was home for the weekend for Jaxon's 9th birthday.
Jaxon mostly put aside his favorite hobby, racing cars on a dirt track,
when his father went to Indiana. Mr. Dye had supervised the races and
worked on the car.
Mr. Dye packs up for the return trip to Indiana.
Cathy Dye helps Jaren, Gianna and Jaxon with schoolwork.
Mr. Dye makes dinner back in Indiana.
Jay Dye eats birthday cake with son Jaxon at home in Ohio in September.
Mr. Dye was home for the weekend for Jaxon’s 9th birthday.
Mr. Dye packs up for the return trip to Indiana.
Cathy Dye helps Jaxon with schoolwork.
His daughter, 17-year-old Gianna, is a drum majorette and a competitive
golfer and dancer. Neither Mr. Dye nor his wife, clinical social worker
Cathy Dye, wanted to tear her away from her high school and activities
in Ohio.
Some co-workers transferred to other factories in the months before GM
and the UAW agreed on terms for closing Lordstown. Mr. Dye held out
until just a month before the shutdown and found himself with limited
options.
He settled for a $5,000 relocation bonus, which committed him to work
one year in Bedford, 6½ hours by car from home.
He brought very little with him: Five pairs of Dickies work pants, four
pairs of jeans, some T-shirts and a few sweatshirts. He figures he can
pack it all, start the car and be gone in two minutes.
The Dyes’ youngest, 9-year-old Jaxon, has taken his father’s absence the
hardest of their three children. During his evening walks, Mr. Dye
fields calls from Jaxon about football or his favorite hobby—racing
small, high-powered cars on a dirt track.
When Mr. Dye visits home, every third weekend, he usually sleeps in
Jaxon’s room.
Mr. Dye talks to Jaxon after work.
In Bedford, he punches in each day between 6:54 and 6:56 a.m., and
starts driving the forklift at 7. He usually logs 84 hours a week—12
hours a day over seven days—loading trucks with parts for factories in
Mexico, Canada, New York and other states.
Mr. Dye makes dinner back in Indiana.
Mr. Dye talks to Jaxon after work.
“Right now I’m existing,” Mr. Dye says. “I’m not really living.”
This fall, Mr. Dye got a reprieve of sorts. GM granted his request to
transfer to a plant in Toledo, and he started there Monday. Unlike the
Bedford factory, Toledo doesn’t have mandatory weekend shifts, so he
plans to visit home every week. And the plant is just 2½ hours away,
adding eight hours of family time to every weekend visit.
Second shift: Zach Sherry
Before he punches in at the factory by 3 each afternoon, Mr. Sherry
takes off his wedding ring, secures it in an Altoids tin and tucks it
into his lunchbox.
He and his wife, Liz Sherry, 48, were high-school sweethearts. Thirty
years later, he is still happy to warm up her cold feet at night. “It’s
just a little thing, but it makes me miss him,” says Mrs. Sherry.
One morning after he left for Indiana, she woke up to discover that
during the night she had organized his pillows into the shape of a person.
Mrs. Sherry lives on her family farm in East Palestine, Ohio, in the
dream house she and Mr. Sherry built together, sunflowers lining the
driveway.
Mr. Sherry eats breakfast at his condo before work.
Mr. Sherry eats breakfast at his condo before work.
In Indiana, Mr. Sherry rented for a while. In July he bought a
two-bedroom condo, complete with furniture, in the Eagle Pointe
development where Mr. Dye lived. The condo retains the impersonal
cleanliness of a real-estate developer’s model home.
The house backs onto a wooded hillside leading down to Monroe Lake. Most
mornings before work, Mr. Sherry carves a couple of steps into the steep
slope, gradually building a staircase connecting the condo to the shore.
It’s a ploy to make Indiana an appealing place to stay for his kids,
19-year-old Parker, a quarterback at West Liberty University in
Wheeling, W.Va., and 17-year-old Payton, in her senior year of high school.
Mr. Sherry bought two kayaks and fantasizes that Parker will do his
online studies at the condo and they’ll paddle around the lake together.
He watches Payton’s basketball games online and plans vacations around
her golf tournaments.
After Mr. Sherry finishes cutting stairs, he goes for a short hike or
jumps in the lake. One recent morning he pointed across the cove toward
the home of another Lordstown bachelor. “He’s got three kids,” Mr.
Sherry said, before pivoting and pointing toward a house in the other
direction. “He’s got kids.”
Zach Sherry plays a game with his kids, Parker and Payton, and his wife,
Liz Sherry, at home in Ohio.
Breakfast with the family. Mrs. Sherry stocks her husband’s freezer in
Indiana with meatloaf, chicken Alfredo and wedding soup with
mini-meatballs so he can have home-cooked meals.
Mr. and Mrs. Sherry walk along their property, part of Mrs. Sherry's
family farm.
Another Lordstown exile has a boat, and Mr. Sherry plans to try midnight
fishing after his shift. He avoids bars. “I don’t want to put myself in
a position to end up in the hospital or prison,” he says.
Zach Sherry plays a game with his kids, Parker and Payton, and his wife,
Liz Sherry, at home in Ohio.
Mr. Sherry and Parker.
Mr. and Mrs. Sherry walk along their property, part of Mrs. Sherry’s
family farm.
Stories circulate among the Lordstown transplants of marriages crumbling
under the pressure of separation.
Payton feels guilty for not making more time for phone calls with her
dad. To compensate, she saved their favorite shows from Shark Week to
watch with him.
Parker worries about his dad’s loneliness, and about his own. “It’s like
I lost my best friend,” Parker says, his voice catching.
After high school, Mr. Sherry worked in a country-club locker room,
before starting his own cleaning service. He felt lucky when his brother
hooked him up with GM in 2000. “In our area there aren’t many jobs,” he
says.
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Now he’s 10 years away from being eligible to retire and, having grown
up poor himself, hopes to have enough money when he dies to leave
something for Payton and Parker.
To do that, he took on one of the most dangerous jobs at the Bedford
factory—mixing alloys in a foundry that burns at 1,700 degrees. He
spends all day in a smock and a full sweat, melting down rejected parts
and other aluminum scrap.
“I don’t know if I’ve got 10 years in me,” Mr. Sherry admits.
Zach Sherry at his condo before work.
Zach Sherry at his condo before work.
Third shift: Dan Santangelo
On the wall of Dan Santangelo’s rented house at Eagle Pointe is a
cluster of framed photos. Happy grandkids. An expectant couple. Palm
trees and a grinning vacationer.
It’s a typical display of family photos. But it’s the landlord’s family
on the wall, not Mr. Santangelo’s.
Mr. Santangelo, 50, started missing his family even before he left them
to work at Bedford last year. Day after day he sat silently in a
recliner at the house in New Middleton, Ohio, and stared into the void
like a man facing a prison sentence—five years away from home until he
could retire.
He’d chew over the what-ifs. What if his parents got sick? What if
something happened to his two kids, or his wife? What if he didn’t earn
enough to cover two households?
He stopped eating but couldn’t stop throwing up. His wife, Anna
Santangelo, finally convinced him to seek help.
Dan Santangelo sits on his couch before work.
The doctor put him on “happy pills,” as Mr. Santangelo calls the
antidepressants. He’s not happy. But the drugs keep him suspended above
the abyss.
The blackness was familiar and frightening. In 2009, the Santangelos
found themselves in a deep financial hole, having overspent on their
three-bedroom ranch house. The national recession led GM to cut shifts
at the Lordstown plant, and the combination of growing debt and reduced
income forced the family to seek refuge in bankruptcy.
Mr. Santangelo contemplated suicide, contriving ways to make it look
accidental so that his wife could get his life-insurance payout. “I felt
like I failed as a man, a husband and a father,” he says.
His family talked him back from the brink, and life settled down into a
happy decade of basketball games with his daughter, 19-year-old Gianna,
and working at the volunteer fire department with his son, 22-year-old
Joe. The family shared Sunday night pasta dinners with his parents.
Mr. Santangelo admits he cheated his way through high school and
struggled with the book work when he tried aircraft mechanics.
His father, Perry Santangelo, worked at the GM Lordstown plant from 1966
to 2000. He pulled strings with the union to get Dan a job in 1995.
“I knew if I got into GM, my worries were over,” say the younger Mr.
Santangelo.
Anna Santangelo cuts her husband Dan Santangelo's hair outside of their
home in Ohio. Dan surprised Anna with a weekend visit.
Mr. Santangelo shows his parents on the calendar the next time he'll be
back for a visit.
Mr. Santangelo packs for Indiana.
Mr. and Mrs. Santangelo say goodbye before Mr. Santangelo leaves for
Indiana.
Mrs. Santangelo with their Labrador Retriever, Abby, after her husband left.
Anna Santangelo cuts her husband Dan Santangelo’s hair outside of their
home in Ohio. Dan surprised Anna with a weekend visit.
Mr. Santangelo shows his parents on the calendar the next time he’ll be
back for a visit.
Mr. and Mrs. Santangelo say goodbye before Mr. Santangelo leaves for
Indiana.
When Lordstown shut its doors, Mr. Santangelo took a $30,000 bonus for a
three-year commitment to relocate to Bedford. “You’ve got no choice,
buddy,” his father told him. “You can’t just quit GM.”
Until Mr. Dye moved to Toledo this month, he and Mr. Santangelo shared
the two-bedroom unit at Eagle Pointe. Some days, the only time they saw
each other was when Mr. Santangelo finished the overnight shift, which
starts at 11 p.m., and handed off the forklift to Mr. Dye in the morning.
Every day Mr. Santangelo packs the same sandwich—ham, turkey, cheese and
Miracle Whip on wheat—for the unnamed meal that comes in the middle of
his shift.
He frets over the possibility that he won’t be close enough to help if
something bad happens to his family. He calls Joe to remind him to
replace the smoke-detector batteries. It was mere chance that he was
home in May, when Mrs. Santangelo’s father grew fevered and delirious
and died of Covid-19 alone in the hospital.
The stability and security Mr. Santangelo thought would be his when he
joined GM remain just out of reach. “Never in my wildest dreams did I
think Lordstown would close,” he says.
Write to Michael M. Phillips at michael.phillips-at-wsj.com and Nora
Naughton at Nora.Naughton-at-wsj.com
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
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Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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