Trump's "Great News" Lands With Thud On Abandoned GM Plant Floor - Bloomberg

[hatrack]

When President Donald Trump tweeted that General Motors Co. was on the verge of selling its idled car plant in Lordstown, Ohio, to a tiny electric truckmaker, David Green had no idea it was coming.

The president of United Auto Workers Local 1112 in Lordstown -- who Trump attacked on Twitter two months ago -- is among a handful of workers whose job is to do maintenance at the inactive compact car factory that made its last Chevrolet Cruze in March. He was left in the dark about GM’s talks to sell the factory. “I haven’t heard anything about it,” Green said by phone Wednesday. “I’m out in the plant cleaning.”

Shortly after that conversation, GM confirmed it was in discussions with Workhorse Group Inc. to sell the 6.2 million square foot assembly plant it opened in 1966. The UAW wasted little time making its position clear: They aren’t interested in such a deal.

EDIT

With just $763,000 in sales last year, Workhorse is probably a virtual unknown to GM’s union workers. The maker of electric pickup trucks and delivery vans lost $36.5 million in 2018 and secured $35 million in financing earlier this year from Marathon Asset Management, which invests in distressed companies. A Workhorse investor told Trucks.com in March that if it’s unable to raise another $40 million to $60 million from selling the design for its two-seat drone called Surefly, the company may have been one or two quarters from bankruptcy. “This is not the economic engine that the Lordstown plant provided for the region,” Shaiken said by phone. “The key issue is GM’s decision to locate a product -- in this case, the Chevy Blazer -- that might have gone in the plant in Ohio, to Mexico.”

EDIT

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-08/trump-gm-reaction

[blueinredohio]

1. Selling the building only helps G.M.

it's not like it will help the people without a job.