The president of the United Auto Workers union at General Motors plant in Lordstown has joined hundreds of other employees in transferring to a GM plant elsewhere.
A Youngstown TV station reported Dave Green will relocate to a plant in Bedford, Ind., which makes transmission parts.
Green has been working with Mahoning Valley leaders to try to secure another product for the Lordstown facility, which GM shut down in March. But he told WKSU last week he would have to take a transfer if it was offered.
“I’ve got two daughters on my health care, and five more years before I can retire,” Green said. “My youngest daughter’s going away to college down at University of Cincinnati. I’m going to have to keep my employment with General Motors for as long as I can just to help my family.”
Green estimated more than 1,000 workers from Lordstown have taken jobs at other GM facilities. Another 500 are still waiting for word, and another 500 have turned down offers and have found or are looking for other work in the Mahoning Valley.
Green said UAW Local 1112 will remain under the leadership of Vice President Tim O’Hara, who is retired from GM. Local 1112 represents other workers at a tech company in Canfield and in the Mahoning County Department of Job and Family Services.
GM is currently in negotiations to sell the Lordstown plant to a Cincinnati electric truck company. Negotiations between the national union and GM are ongoing.
Green had come undercriticism from President Trump, who tweeted Green "ought to get his act together." Green responded then that neither the president nor the union idled the plant.
