WASHINGTON -- House Democrats from Michigan and Ohio, angry that General Motors plans to idle large plants that employ thousands of people, vowed Thursday to reset tax, trade and industrial policies to encourage companies to invest in the U.S. rather than move production overseas.
In a press briefing, indignant members of the House Automotive Caucus said GM acted like a corporate bully instead of being grateful to taxpayers and workers for bailing it out during the financial crisis 10 years ago.
"We saved GM. It would not exist but for the taxpayers of the U.S. It would not exist but for the concessions by the UAW," said Congressman-elect Andy Levin.
His father, outgoing Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., said the package of government loans, tax assistance and labor givebacks was a collaborative process with the Obama administration that took a lot of hard work to put together.
"Now, GM is kind of setting aside collaboration," he said. "That is a serious mistake. There wasn't any involvement of labor."
GM referred questions to a prepared statement released on Tuesday.
"Many of the U.S. workers impacted by these actions will have the opportunity to shift to other GM plants where we will need more employees to support growth in trucks, crossovers and SUVs," the statement said. "GM’s transformation also includes adding technical and engineering jobs to support the future of mobility, such as new jobs in electrification and autonomous vehicles."
The lawmakers, all strong defenders of the auto industry, said they feel burned by GM.
"We took lots of political bullets" when some were arguing to let Detroit automakers go bankrupt, said Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, who represents Lordstown, home of one of the targeted plants. "We stuck our neck out because we didn't want to lose manufacturing in the U.S. Years later, same company gets a tax cut to the tune of $150 million [in the 2017 tax bill], and the result of that is 14,000 jobs getting cut and the stock goes up 6 percent.
"And then you wonder why the American people are so upset about what has happened to our country."
Workers bear the brunt of flawed economic and tax policies, factory closures and pension reductions, Ryan added. "There's always some damn excuse about why it happens. We need to reset our economic policy and put workers at the center."
The lawmakers also took President Donald Trump to task for promising people in the Midwest that if they voted for him in 2016, there would be an influx of new factories and no loss of manufacturing jobs. They said the administration's tariffs have put a strain on companies, that the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement doesn't level the playing field with Mexico when it comes to worker pay and collective bargaining, and that its trade policy is incoherent.
Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio said the caucus will invite the president to join them in meeting workers from plants slated for idling.
GM technically isn't shuttering its assembly plants, it's just not allocating any models to them anymore after deciding to discontinue production of slow-selling models. New models potentially could be substituted, and Ryan suggested GM's announcement was designed to gain the upper hand in upcoming talks on a new labor contract.
"They are going to go into contract negotiations, and they are going to pit the local unions against each other to get the best deal. And the union that has the lowest wage and negotiates the lowest benefit will get any new product," he said. "So, anyone who got screwed in this process gets to fight amongst each other to have a race to the bottom. That's how distorted the system is."
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