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Stood outside a closed GM plant in Lordstown, Ohio last month and counted 14 cars in the lot, all covered in snow
I was driving through Lordstown on Route 45 to visit my aunt and pulled into the old GM plant lot because I needed to turn around, and I ended up parking and just looking at the place. The local paper ran a piece about a battery plant bringing 1,100 jobs back to the site, but standing there I saw a fence with no gates, a guard shack with a broken window, and a sign that still says 'Lordstown Complex' peeling off. One side says the battery plant is proof these towns can come back and the other side says it's a taxpayer-funded band aid on a wound that never closes. I honestly don't know which one I believe after seeing it with my own eyes. Anyone here from a town that lost its main factory, did the replacement jobs actually stick around or was it just a press release?
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val_ramirez4d ago
Did anyone check if the battery plant hires locals or just brings its own workers in?
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tessa_craig4d ago
Did the company put any kind of local hiring requirement in their deal with the city or county? Because @val_ramirez that's the part that matters, if there's no rule in writing they can bring in whoever they want. Look at what happened in other towns with these plants, they promise jobs then show up with their own crew from out of state. So my question is who signed off on the deal and did they ask for proof of local hires before handing over the tax breaks?
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