UAW releases video highlighting Lordstown plant closure, effect on community

UAW President Shawn Fain posted a video to the UAW International Union Facebook page Wednesday highlighting three towns that had their assembly plants shuttered.
"Our hometowns are under attack. Belvidere, Lordstown, Romeo - just a few years ago they were thriving towns with profitable auto plants," Fain said in the video.
The video goes on to show a clip of former President Donald Trump during a 2017 visit to Lordstown where he infamously said "They're all coming back. Don't move, don't sell your house" when referencing jobs at the Lordstown assembly plant.
Since 2003, the Big Three automakers have closed 65 assembly plants, something Fain said devastated those communities.
"That's been devastating to our communities. Plant closures shutter local businesses, wreck lives and rip apart families," he continued.
Dustin Rose, a UAW member from Lordstown, said the plant closure was a catalyst for divorce. "It's completely turned my life upside down. It doesn't affect just your livelihood, it affects everything," Rose said. "Knowing that I'm never going back to the community that raised me is definitely the hardest thing to think about."
Rose called the decision to close the Lordstown plant a "huge corporate greed thing," noting that he went from working seven days a week to being laid off.
The GM Lordstown plant opened in 1966.
UAW Region 2B Director David Green is featured in the video, saying his dad was hired into GM during that first year. He said the plant lifted up the Lordstown community and the wages for those living there.
Green described being hired at the Lordstown plant in 1995.
"When I got hired in 95, I kind of felt like I hit the lottery. Not only was it a great job, I was able to buy a house with a picket fence, raise two beautiful daughters, but was able to kind of live that American dream," Green said.
Fain says the UAW is demanding the right to strike over plant closures in their negotiations with the Big Three. They're also demanding the creation of the Working Family Protection Program, a program to keep UAW members working. The program would require companies to pay UAW workers if they try to shutter plants.