Tim O'Hara said they're still all UAW members, but some Local 1112 members felt a little betrayed by the vote
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LORDSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – On Friday, the United Auto Workers voted to end the strike against General Motors. Their new contract seals GM Lordstown’s fate of not getting a new product.
UAW Local 1112 President Tim O’Hara talked about what is next.
“We weren’t surprised when it passed but we knew that when it did, it basically sealed our fate,” he said.
When UAW members voted to pass the new contract with GM, it left Local 1112 behind.
Now, workers are having to go forward without GM Lordstown getting a new product.
“We lost an iconic plant, an iconic employer in the Valley,” O’Hara said. “Our future is obviously going to have to be discussed as far as where we go from here. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
O’Hara said they’re still all UAW members, but some Local 1112 members felt a little betrayed by the vote.
“We just wanted them to remember that what happened to us can happen to them ’cause there’s nothing in this contract that stops GM from showing up unannounced at their plant the Monday after Thanksgiving — for example, like they did to us — and telling them they’re done,” O’Hara said.
O’Hara talked about Lordstown Motors Corp., the company interested in buying GM Lordstown, or the potential of a battery plant.
“We don’t know the timeline on that. I mean, it could be one to two years from now. Obviously, we can’t sustain our… financially, for that long of a period,” O’Hara said.
As far as the plant goes, O’Hara said he wouldn’t be surprised to wake up on Monday to see it had been sold over the weekend.
“We’ll see what happens next week but I wouldn’t be surprised [if] this sale happens sooner rather than later,” O’Hara said.
O’Hara said he’s now lost trust in GM and feels the decision to close Lordstown was a long-term plan.
“Well, we feel that GM set us up to fail. So we’ve been seeing signs for the last two to three years ’cause I think this is a long-term plan that they had,” O’Hara said.
The next step is to figure out if UAW Local 1112 will survive.
O’Hara also wanted to thank members of the community for their support.