Ford To Close 1 Plant, Idle Another

[liberal N proud]

Source: NewsNet5.com—Cleveland, OH

NewsNet5.com
10:18 a.m. EDT May 7, 2007
BROOK PARK, Ohio - Hundreds of Ford workers are finding out Monday that they're getting pink slips. Ford Motor Co. announced plans to close its casting plant in Brook Park in 2009. It employees 1,218 workers.

NewsChannel5 also learned that 470 workers at Cleveland Engine Plant One in Brook Park will be out of work for at least a year starting in two weeks.

A second engine plant at the complex will remain open.



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18533123/

[tjwash]

1. Let me guess; Fords greedy execs blamed it on the unions.

They had to come up with Mulally's 28 million dollars SOMEWHERE.

[Kolesar]

10. That product line of that V6 engine with an iron block is being phased out

And Ford really does not have another product to put into the plant.

[Rydz777]

2. Decline

One out of every six manufacturing jobs in the USA have been lost since the beginning of the Bush administration. We are told not to worry, that there are always "service jobs." You can either be a computer programmer or work at McDonalds. Oops, I forgot that the computer programming jobs are moving to Bangalore, India. Oh, well, that leaves McDonalds.

[HuskiesHowls]

3. Don't forget that in this GREAT economy,

slapping a hamburger patty on a bun and adding lettuce and tomato is "manufacturing"!!

[HughBeaumont]

5. There's going to be a giant problem in this country of . . .

employing people that aren't college educated or aren't meant for college in the coming decades. The Fords, Chryslers, Marconis and Republic Steels of this nation have gone to cheaper shores. That leaves a lot of people that relied on that opportunity in the past holding the bag.

We cannot just be a nation of people who do each other's hair, serve each other coffee or sell each other stereos. We need a strong economy again for everyone, not just the upper echelon.

[liberal N proud]

9. Been my sentiments for a long time

A nation can not build an economy on service jobs

[WCGreen]

4. Not good news at all....

I am working with a candidate from Brook Park and this news will severely curtail the services provided by what use to be a strong, working class suburb where hard working people were given a chance to live the American Dream...

Many are waking up to the nightmare that is RepubliCONomics.....

[jimshoes]

6. I just heard about this

I had heard rumors of this happening but the reality of it really blows for the residents of Brook Park not to mention the workers themselves. Bad news all around unless you're a greedy exec of Ford Motor Co.

[WCGreen]

7. It sure does suck...

The life out of Cleveland...

[partylessinOhio]

8. What is our once great Congress doing about the loss of good jobs

in America? What are our local congresspersons from northern Ohio saying or doing? I've not heard a word except from Dennis.

Stephanie Tubbs Jones where are you? If it's not Black you don't get involved. So sad when a congressperson is hand picked by the former congressperson to takeover the seat. This is what we are stuck with.

Just drive thru Cleveland and see the decline. Now that decline has spread to the suburbs. People cannot keep up their homes. In Shaker Heights there are so many empty homes that were becoming eyesores, the city is now cutting the grass and bushes so it doesn't look so bad. In previous years Shaker Heights was one of the richest suburbs in America.

We needs jobs here, more jobs, good paying jobs that can support a family. We don't need to lose more jobs, have more empty plants and stores adding to the decline and blight that is growing. We don't need our county and local government raising taxes on our declining properties while the joker in the WH gave his rich buddies tax cuts and keeps adding his war costs to our national debt.

Can anyone save America? Does anyone in power care?

[jaysunb]

11. Slightly unfair to Tubbs-Jones

Dennis Kucinich is a pretty high profile official as well, and lets not forget the former mayor George Voinavich who is in the US Senate.

BTW, I was just in Cleveland last month and for the first time in over 30 years I left with the feeling the area was making a comeback. Granted, I didn't see EVERY part of the city, there were places that I felt I could live--especially in the Cleveland Clinic corridor, and the eastern suburbs.
My parents neighborhood where I grew up ( 115th St Clair ) still looks like a war zone, but even there , there were signs of redevelopment and vitality. A long way to go but it was encouraging.

In defense of the Congresswoman, I attended school w/ her and her sister ( Patrick Henry & Collinwood )my oldest daughter and her family live across the street from Tubbs-Jones family home ( her father still lives there) and it's a pleasant street that my grandchildren have been able to thrive and enjoy. But one street over it's scary-- even for me. But this is what happens when communities are forced to transition from an industrial based to service/high tech. I know Stephanie cares deeply about her community and it's constituents, but the entrenched powers that control the levers of the economy are much more powerful than any one person---no matter what their position.

Fords engine plant # 1 was the last job I had before leaving Cleveland 39 years ago. My ex wife retired from there 6 months ago. The handwriting has been on the wall for quite awhile now. Cleveland is a city in transition,but it will rise again.

[Kolesar]

12. Suburbanization and racist development laws ruined those neighborhoods

The superhighways cut the neighborhoods apart. Those with good jobs moved out to the suburbs and took their wealth with them. Black people were excluded from buying homes in "exclusive" developments. despair

[OhioChick]

13. The Cleveland-area

is getting hit so damn hard. What's left to do for a living, higher education or not?