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UAW Leaders Comment on GM's Buick City Assembly Center Closing And Flint V-8 Engine Plant Announcements

21 November 1997

UAW Leaders Comment on GM's Buick City Assembly Center Closing And Flint V-8 Engine Plant Announcements

    DETROIT, Nov. 21 -- "This action is one more example of the
'America-last' strategy that's driving the biggest corporations in the U.S. to
cut the guts out of the economic future of today's workers and their
children," said UAW President Stephen P. Yokich, commenting on GM's
announcement today that it will close its Flint Buick City assembly plant in
the fall of 1999.
    "Closing this facility is a betrayal of GM's workforce, of the community
and of the country, especially in light of GM's huge profits," Yokich
continued.
    "Given that GM has commissioned no less than 8 new assembly plants from
Brazil to Shanghai, no one should be fooled by GM's claims of marketplace
driven overcapacity as the basis of this decision," added UAW Vice President
Richard Shoemaker, who heads the Union's General Motors Department.
    "What they like to call overcapacity is nothing but a cover-up for the
continuing transfer of capital, jobs and other resources to foreign production
sites," Shoemaker added.
    "GM has an obligation and responsibility to its workforce, to the
communities that have sustained its growth and to the nation to maintain its
U.S. operations.  Instead of closing the Buick City facility, what GM should
do is cancel plans to build assembly plants in other countries,"  Shoemaker
continued.
    UAW Region 1C Director Ruben Burks, whose region includes the Flint area,
commented, "Some Thanksgiving -- bad news from GM that will cripple our
community for decades to come."
    "What makes it all the worse," Burks added, "is that the Buick City
workforce and the community have met or exceeded every demand from GM
regarding quality and productivity improvements, economic incentives and
anything else they asked, only to be slapped in the face in return."
    Noting that GM also announced today that they will build a new engine
plant to replace the Flint V-8 plant previously scheduled to close, Shoemaker
said, "while this news is both positive and welcome, it in no way makes up for
the company's completely wrong-headed decision regarding the Flint Buick City
assembly operations or the jobs that will be lost even when the new V-8 engine
plant opens."
    "The net effect is negative and that's all there is to it," added
Shoemaker.
    "The whole thing is yet another blow to trying to build a constructive
relationship with this company," Yokich said, adding that "we will not soon
forget this completely unnecessary action by GM -- nor will we abandon the
impacted workers or the community."

SOURCE  UAW Public Relations