After nearly 35 years of working for General Motors in Baltimore—first at its since-shuttered Baltimore Assembly plant on Broening Highway, and for the last 18 years at the company’s White Marsh facility—Guy White is hoping for a conversation with company brass about their decision to shutter the factory.
“Personally, what I have a hard time grasping is that the corporation has metrics that they measure their plants by, and our plant has the best attendance of any plant in North America—that’s Mexico, Canada, the United States,” says the shop chairman of United Auto Workers 239, which represents the company’s Maryland employees. “We have the best attendance. On all of our metrics, we’re a lean, efficient plant.”
Last month, GM announced its plan to “unallocate” funds from five of its North American plants—a workaround for “closed” or other synonyms, actions prohibited in the soon-to-expire UAW contract—shutting them down and eliminating 14,700 jobs in the process, to addressing falling auto sales and changing consumer demands. The company’s plant in White Marsh, which employs 310 workers, is part of those scheduled cuts, set to take effect in April.
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