WARREN, Ohio -- I started working on the line at the General Motors plant in Lordstown in 1966, the year it opened. Like many of my friends and neighbors, I took the job because it was the best way to get the life I wanted -- a home, a family and one day a secure retirement. I didn’t take those things for granted, though; I knew that the workers that came before me in the industry had won them by organizing with the United Auto Workers, and so I became active in the union, too, eventually becoming the local president.
For almost 40 years, I was proud of my auto work and the good jobs we won at the bargaining table. The pay and benefits we won enabled me to raise three kids and live a comfortable middle-class life. I retired in 2002 after years of physically demanding work.
But recently, I have watched as the good jobs that helped Lordstown families put food on the table, pay the mortgage and send their kids to college have disappeared. That’s why I’m joining the fight to bring good jobs back.
The transition to electric vehicles has created an opportunity for Lordstown and GM to build back better -- not just by making cars themselves and the batteries that power them, but also to build back with good union jobs.
We’ve been hopeful as GM has partnered with companies that are focused on the vehicles of the future. One such example is how we believed that Lordstown Motors Corp. (LMC), with GM as a partner, would bring lots of family-sustaining jobs to the Mahoning Valley. But our hopes are turning to doubt as the news gets worse every day: The future of LMC is in jeopardy and so are the good jobs they promised for the next generation.
Bill Bowers, who worked at GM's Lordstown complex from its 1966 opening until his 2002 retirement, is United Auto Workers Local 1112 retirees chairman in Warren, Ohio.
LMC was supposed to be our saving grace, and we still hope that the company can pull through, but we also know they aren’t the only game in town. Lordstown is also leading the way on battery manufacturing with Ultium, a GM joint venture.
But the only way that we will actually see progress for the workers of Ohio is if the jobs created are good, union jobs that you can raise a family on and retire from.
When I talk to my friends and neighbors who are still looking for good-paying jobs for themselves or their children, they are cautiously optimistic about the 1,100 jobs at Ultium. And GM’s recent statement that it “will build on a long history of supporting unions to promote safety, quality, training and well-paying jobs” is a positive sign, but what really counts will be the actions it takes. It must ensure workers can form a union without interference and bargain a contract with fair wages and benefits, as well as important workplace rights and protections.
Here’s what I know from more than 50 years of seeing the auto industry up close: You can’t have a strong industry without strong workers and strong contracts -- otherwise, it’s just a race to the bottom. We can build a strong electric vehicle industry in the United States and right here in Ohio, but only if workers have true opportunities to thrive with a voice on the job. GM has long claimed the mantle of the good employer whose workers are part of the bedrock of the middle class. But that has only been possible because workers built a strong union and GM has come to the bargaining table in good faith time and again.
Now as it builds batteries, EVs and more, the company must continue that tradition, regardless of whether it does so through a joint venture, a subsidiary or on its own. Because here in Lordstown, workers refuse to be left behind again.
Retired Lordstown auto worker Bill Bowers is retirees chairman for United Auto Workers Local 1112 in Warren, Ohio.
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