Posted on 06/27/2009 5:30:23 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
A Janesville, WI civic leader says he’s ready to give up on the possibility that his community will be a General Motors town again.
"It’s time to move on; that’s my view," John Beckord, president of Forward Janesville, said Friday after Janesville was passed over for production of a new GM car.
Troy Clarke, president of General Motors North America, confirmed Friday that a next-generation subcompact car — as yet unnamed — will be built in Orion Township, Mich., assuming ongoing talks over economic incentives are successful.
Janesville, whose GM factory saw the last of its vehicles roll off the assembly line in April, was one of three sites under consideration for the work along with its 1,400 anticipated jobs. It will remain "on standby capacity," GM said. Spring Hill, Tenn., the other potential site for the new car, will go on standby in November when its current production ends.
Clarke said all three states made "very attractive offers" but the package from Michigan was "a very, very, very good offer." He gave no specifics but said one factor considered was "support and state incentives." Michigan’s proposal was "really creative and brought us a package that really makes this program work," he said.
Gov. Jim Doyle, in a written statement, said he is "deeply disappointed" Janesville was not chosen, but added, "We knew it would be an uphill battle."
Members of United Auto Workers Local 95 in Janesville , said shop chairman John Dohner Jr. He said he thinks GM took Wisconsin’s proposal — including innovative moves by the union and tax incentives in the proposed state budget for the next biennium — "and shopped it around. And Orion came in and said, ‘we’ll match whatever Wisconsin gives you,’" Dohner speculated.
David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research, in Ann Arbor, Mich., said he didn’t think Janesville had a chance. "The plant was so old compared to the other plants, I don’t think it was realistic."
U.S. Sens. Russ Feingold, Middleton, and Herb Kohl, Milwaukee, and Reps. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, and Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, released a joint statement.
"It is because of the hard work, determination and coordination by all involved that the Janesville plant made it this far and was in the running until this point," the federal lawmakers said. "We are committed to helping the working people of Rock County during this time."
GM officials have said the two plants not chosen will be eligible for handling overflow production of other types of vehicles. Cole said Janesville is "absolutely" a good candidate for that.
"Capacity has been so cut that if there’s any return to a reasonable market at all, that’ll be quite valuable," he said. Cole said there could be enough of a sales boost to put both the Janesville and Spring Hill plants back in business.
But GM’s Clarke said a decision on which plant might be called back in will depend on which vehicles sell well. Spring Hill is configured for large, unibody, crossover vehicles while Janesville was set up for full-size, rear-wheel-drive, sport-utility vehicles.
"I’m not saying Janesville could not be converted but that conversion would take time," Clarke said, in a telephone news conference.
Labor leader Dohner said he’s no longer optimistic Janesville will get any GM work back. "I’m not going to hang on and wait," he said.
Forward Janesville’s Beckord, who was part of a yearlong task force working on the GM package, echoed Dohner’s skepticism. "There’s no shortage of people in this community wondering if the company really had Michigan at the top of its list from the beginning," he said.
The plan, hand-delivered to GM officials last week by Doyle, included the possibility of making small, unibody cars in Janesville, Beckord said. "In fact, we could make multiple lines," he added.
Beckord said community leaders now should take a "real thoughtful look" at how the GM property might be transformed. "It’s time to move in that direction, in my view," said Beckord, and not just because Janesville lost out on the new car production.
"It has everything to do with the reality of the auto market," he said, questioning if GM will even be able to maintain its deflated market share.
Beckord said numerous businesses could occupy the vast GM property. "It’s very possible that five years from now, we could be talking about redeveloped property that would employ twice as many people as this (new car) plant would," he said.
Can a MI Freeper enlighten me? What the heck did Grandholm promise GM? (I shudder to think!)
Silly Troy.
Thinks he's president of Government Motors.
You mean what did OBAMA “tell” GM to do....
This is like inmates fighting over a pay phone. Seriously, why are Governors fighting over what is essentially the best place where GM can hold one of its inevitable funerals?
I can tell you that GM was trying to get Tennessee to guarantee them $400,000,000 up front cash before deciding to locate in Smerna, TN. Our Democrat Governor walked out on the extortionists! Granholm was obviously more desperate.
Wow. And now we know...the REST of the story. :)
The best thing Janesville can do is to forget GM and move on. The overinflated wage scale at GM did more harm to the community than it did good.
“It has everything to do with the reality of the auto market,” he said, questioning if GM will even be able to maintain its deflated market share.”
I no longer think of GM as American, and could care less what they make here on out. I’d rather walk, bicycle, ride the train, or any other type of transportation than to buy a GM car. My father worked for GM pretty much his whole life, and my first car was a Pontiac, so this is a definite change in how I feel.
I pointed out in those early threads that Michigan was one of the big time players in the "tax incentive" and "industrial bond" games and that we'd see Michigan renegotiating all the deals AFTER the bankruptcy of Chrysler and GM inasmuch as bankruptcy does tend to disrupt their existence.
So, here we are, after bankruptcy, and GM (and Chrysler, though more quietly since their smaller) are renegotiating the tax incentives and industrial bond arrangements.
Michigan (and it's various subdivisions) are on the hook to pay the bonds behind these arrangements if the automakers don't agree to use the facilities involved.
If I were GM I'd be asking for MORE INCENTIVES and screw the old stuff. If I were Michigan I'd be seeing how close the state was to bankruptcy ~ which it's gone through before!
It's entirely possible the bondholders on those facilities erected with industrial bonds are going to end up owning empty buildings.
You don't shudder as much as we do...
Beckord said numerous businesses could occupy the vast GM property.
Sure...You can fit tons of Subways, candle shops and dollar stores in all that space...
“The overinflated wage scale at GM did more harm to the community than it did good.”
I think a lot of the ‘union states’ will be feeling that very same way in the future.
Our Nation truly IS being turned inside out. I’m not sure how much more of this ‘spin cycle’ I can handle!
That ‘vast GM property’ is 400 acres of land.
Turn it into a corn field or a feed lot and produce something useful from it!
"I'd be more inclined to think that we were used," Cullen said. That's because the reasons cited for not choosing Janesville - it doesn't have a stamping plant, it would be extremely expensive to retool the plant, among other reasons - were known at the beginning of the process, he said.
I'd say that Government Motors is a pretty slick operator, since they got Wisonsin to put together a package for a plant that could not actually build the vehicle.
2 unions in NW WI. Were brutally smacked down never to be seen or heard from again! Only union workers up here are of course Lienenkugel's Brewery. After Eau Claire's United Rubber Workers priced themselves out their jobs, US Darley Pump went on strike and were smacked down as well.
Never do people learn. 1000’s of jobs were lost in
Eau Claire.
I’d bet they were playing all three states off of one another, and MI caved first.
This will be very interesting in the future when few jobs are created, the plant FAILS anyway and the taxpayers are stuck with a huge bill down the road based on what Grandholm promised.
I didn’t WANT WI to win this contract for the very reasons stated above.
(And TN is obviously smarter than MI or WI combined, LOL!)
IIRC Janesville is one of the oldest facilities in GM.
Not much chance that it would be retooled.
But as you say it made a for a good poker hand.
Diana... can you post a comment to this thread same topic?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2280951/posts
Spanked. Done. ;)
In my business travels to Wisconsin this year (Green Bay and Madison) I’m surprised how many conservatives I run into there. It’s a shame the state leans slightly libtard like it does!
What difference would a move to Wisconsin make? Both states a stupid for unions. Why not go to say Mississippi where unions are considered scum mobsters?
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