Hardest hit in Ohio will be Mansfield Metal Center where 1,300 jobs will be shed. In Columbus, a parts warehouse is being shuttered, eliminating 80 jobs and Parma's Powertrain unit will close, knocking out fewer than 50 jobs. But many large local plants are staying open and Toledo's transmission plant could benefit from a closing in Michigan as work is consolidated in northern Ohio. Analyst Sue Helper of Case Western Reserve University.
SUE HELPER: There are some cuts but I think we're not feeling as bad as some of the other states.
More pain is coming for GM dealers though. The company wants to cut 26- hundred of it's 62-hundred dealerships. GM has notified about 15-hundred dealerships they would close so far. More notices could go out today. In a media call, GM CEO Fritz Henderson said the company is hearing appeals.
FRITZ HENDERSON: What we're doing is sitting with any dealer that does that and try to look at their facts. There aren't to be honest very many reversals of those decisions but nonetheless I think... it's incumbent upon us to look at the facts because in some cases we have made mistakes and so we'll correct them.
GM's bankruptcy filing also has the estimated 72 thousand Ohioans working for companies that supply car parts worried. GM is halting most of its production due to unsold inventory. Bill Gaskin of the Precision Metalforming Association says small suppliers expect to have little cash on hand this summer because of the slowdowns, and may have trouble getting loans when orders pick up.
BILL GASKIN: Restarting is the hard part. It's once you've bottomed and then when you start to go up the other side that's when small companies get in trouble the most.
Ohio's largest GM employer, Lordstown Metal and Assembly is on schedule for its new car, the Chevy Cruze. Prototypes of the fuel-efficient sedan are still set to roll off the Lordstown line late this year. About 2,500 people work at Lordstown, though they are now on furlough. I'm Mhari Saito, now more from 90.3's David C. Barnett.
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Parma mayor Dean Dipiero was all smiles when he met with reporters yesterday afternoon. The city could have lost hundreds more jobs if its GM stamping plant had been on the hit list.
MAYOR DiPIERO: All in all, this is a great day for the City of Parma and Parma General Motors. We're optimistic for the future and we're happy for the employees, the families and the residents of this city. We'll continue to have a close partnership so that we can make it through the bankruptcy, continue to make the local plant competitive, and continue to perhaps grow in the future.
But, some residents of Cuyahoga County's second largest city were less optimistic about the future --- especially when an American icon like GM goes into bankruptcy. A mile down the road from city hall, as he packed groceries into his van, Steven Homolya was troubled by that news.
STEVEN HOMOLYA: I think it says that we're going in the totally wrong direction --- politically and financially.
Homolya said the right direction would be what he called more free market capitalism, less government involvement in the process and fewer bailouts for GM and other corporations.
DCB ON TAPE: What about the billions of dollars given them in loans. You think we're going to see any of that given back?
STEVEN HOMOLYA: Absolutely not, especially now that they're in bankruptcy.
DCB: Myron Kaplan who runs Pearl Road Auto Wrecking was amazed by the GM bankruptcy announcement.
MYRON KAPLAN: Can't believe it, because they've been around probably as long as we've been here, which is 80 years.
The fact that Chrysler is due to come out from bankruptcy in a few days gave Kaplan little solace. He said he's not so sure that Chrysler is in the clear, yet. GM and Chrysler still have many hurdles to jump.
