The last of 14,000 or so structural steel beams is lowered into place in February at the $2.3 billion Ultium Cells LLC facility in Lordstown. General Motors, a 50 percent investor in the plant, is being recognized by the Youngstown Warren Regional Chamber for the investment, but the award is raising the eyebrows of some union members and former assembly plant workers. Provided photo / Roger Mastroianni for General Motors

LORDSTOWN — Giving General Motors an award for the impact it’s made in the community is “like a smack in the face” to the former workers and their families displaced when the automaker closed its Lordstown assembly plant, its former union leader said.

“What about the thousands of kids that wrote merry Christmas cards, sent letters? Maybe they are the ones that should receive the award,” Dave Green, former president of United Auto Workers Local 1112, said.

Green is among some who responded to a tweet by a reporter for this newspaper after he received an email from the Youngstown Warren Regional Chamber that, in part, announced General Motors is the recipient of the chamber’s Spirit of the Valley Award, given annually to recognize work done by individuals or companies that positively affect the community.

This recognition for GM is for the $2.3 billion investment it and South Korea’s LG Chem are making in Lordstown to build a next-generation electric vehicle battery-cell manufacturing plant, Ultium Cells LLC, that will employ upward of 1,100 people at full production.

“The chamber perspective is that this is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, economic investment in the Valley’s history … and it was the GM site consultants that picked this location, and that doesn’t count the investment that GM made for Lordstown Motors,” said Guy Coviello, chamber president / CEO.

GM in March 2019 shuttered the assembly plant, ending 53 years of automaking in the Mahoning Valley. It turned around and sold it in November of that year to upstart electric truck company Lordstown Motors Corp., to which GM extended a $40 million line of credit to acquire the plant. In August, GM committed to a $75 million investment in Lordstown Motors.

In January 2020, the automaker announced it had selected 158 acres adjacent to the plant for the Ultium Cells plant.

WALK IT BACK

A widespread local campaign — Drive It Home — involved community and elected officials and the regional chamber to try to convince GM to walk back its closing decision. The effort, however, came up short.

Members of the coalition attended the North American International Auto Show in Detroit to show solidarity behind the plant and the state’s try at convincing GM to assign a new vehicle to the plant; they went to Columbus to garner support from Ohio lawmakers; and students at about 20 local school districts led a letter-writing campaign to GM CEO Mary Barra.

With the closure, many of the assembly plant’s 1,500 workers left for other GM facilities and some got out of automaking, choosing another career instead or retiring.

Tim O’Hara, who took over as president of Local 1112 when Green left, said he believes although the workers have moved on, the bitter feelings they have toward GM will linger.

“I can’t say I was totally shocked because the chamber is going to do what they do. They don’t have the same feelings in the situation as we do from the union standpoint,” O’Hara said. “But having said that, Saturday is the two-year anniversary of the last (Chevrolet) Cruze rolling off that line. So to that, any of the workers that were there that day and to those who weren’t, you were watching workers’ tears literally fall onto the car as they did their job for the last time. Those feelings won’t go away any time soon.”

Green, who took a job at a GM casting plant in Bedford, Ind., said he’s glad to see the investments by GM / LG Chem and Lordstown Motors, but the “jobs aren’t as hearty;” they pay less and have lesser benefits, he said.

“I want the community to do well, but to give GM the Spirit of the Valley (award) is like a smack in the face to not only the thousands of workers and their families, but I’m thinking of all the kids that wrote letters,” he said.

RIPPLE EFFECT

Said Coviello, “I think what happened in the past was heart-wrenching, but as I take on a new role in this community, I prefer to look forward and with the glass half full, and as a result of these investments, the community has an opportunity to be at the forefront of an emerging industry, that being electric-vehicle manufacturing.”

The plant, he said, will create a positive ripple in the supply and service provider chains by companies that want to be close to and do business with Ultium Cells.

The 2.8 million-square-foot plant is a 50-50 joint venture between GM and LG Chem. The steel structure is complete, and the building already is partially covered with its outer skin. Early phase production is expected to start in early 2022.

Last month, ironworkers with Local 207 placed the last of 14,000 or so structural steel beams.

The project ended 2020 with about 500 construction workers on site. That numbered about 650 in late February and is expected to rise to 1,000 when it comes time to process equipment installation sometime in the middle of this year.

rselak@tribtoday.com