Northern New York follies

Bad Day at Snell Locks

The closing of the General Motors Powertrain plant in Massena is the kind of bad news that every rural community in this country dreads. The loss of more than 500 jobs, plus the many, many spinoff jobs associated with the plant and its workers, is a devastating blow in a community of 6,000 people.

By the last measure, taken a couple of years ago, GM had an economic impact of more than $100 million dollars, a third of that in salaries alone. And those salaries are the ones that lift a small community above its neighbors, because the jobs routinely provided incomes of $40,000 or more – high wages in Northern New York. Many of the management jobs carried salaries far higher.

Now, the GM employees who are facing the closure of their plant are to be given dire choices: take our severance packages and find new jobs, or relocate to another GM plant far removed from this region. The potential uprooting of families is nearly as drastic as the loss of the jobs, because many of those GM employees are the movers and shakers and doers of the community – Massena Mayor Randy Delosh, as only one example, will be facing the hard choice of taking a severance package and trying to find work here, or moving his family where GM still has work for him.

This is indeed a Hobson’s choice for the workers. Back in November 2005, the company announced it would cut 30,000 jobs and close nine powertrain and assembly plants. This decision by GM is certainly a component of that decision, but what it should say to GM workers contemplating a move to another GM facility is that, unlike the GM of even 15 years ago, jobs for life are nothing but a fleeting memory. Now, a Massena worker who transfers to Ohio or Michigan or another plant site must first ask “How secure will THAT plant be?” Indeed, some of the workers at the Massena plant are refugees from other facilities that have already felt the knife; will they want to keep following the company like some 21st century nomads, hoping the U.S. auto industry can recover from scores of years of bad decisions and lack of vision?

Last quarter, Toyota for the first time overtook GM as the world’s largest automaker. It has been a long time coming, but it is scarcely a shock. Toyota has taken the lead among the world’s car builders in diversifying its inventory, leading the way on hybrid cars, high-gas-mileage vehicles and innovative design. Today’s Chevy Monte Carlo, on the other hand, isn’t significantly different than the one my uncle proudly drove away from his job at the Natick, Mass., assembly plant when he retired in 1976. Less than three months after he retired, at 57 after 37 years on the job, Natick laid off 3,000 employees. And so it goes.

Larger communities that have lost GM plants have managed to survive, and some of them even to thrive. Syracuse, for example, has finally found tenants for its defunct GM plant, renamed its GM Circle, and moved on. Not all communities have been so fortunate. I drove through Flint, Mich., a couple years ago, and parts of that city still look more like Beirut than a thriving Midwest city. In communities like Massena, where Alcoa remains but there are few other major manufacturers or large-scale employers (outside of Wal-Mart, and you’d have to work two shifts a day AND some overtime at Wal-Mart to make up for wages lost at GM), opportunities for displaced GM workers are going to be scarce – and incredibly competitive.

What can Massena do? There are no easy answers. In the past year, local officials appear to have become a bit disenchanted with local economic development efforts, shaking up the Massena Business Development Corp. and grumbling about a lack of solid results in business recruitment. Massena has seen some big box stores arrive in the form of Home Depot and the new Wal-Mart, but those are service industries that thrive on the spending of well-employed people. By the end of next year, Massena will be woefully short of that category.

Clearly, the state will try to help. Empire Development is already involved, as are state and federal legislators. Their efforts won’t come into play, however, until there is some company or companies at least willing to talk about filling the void that GM will leave. Unless that happens quickly, one of the chief lures of Massena – cheap industrial power – may disappear as completely as does GM.

Both Alcoa and GM are in Massena because that cheap, locally generated power is available. It is a huge lure to any manufacturer, and an asset of almost inestimable value for the community. It is earmarked for the north country, which becomes the region's best (only?) bargaining chip. But don't think for a minute that the cheap power is guaranteed as long as the wind blows and the grass grows, for anything the Legislature can bestow, it can just as quickly take away. If that cheap power looks like it is being wasted, it could be yanked out of the north country in a heartbeat.

One thing is clear – the community and the state can’t spend any time wringing their hands over the GM decision, or trying to change the company’s mind. This die was cast way back in 2005, to a great degree, and any effort at getting the decision revoked is merely pissing into a stiff breeze. Massena, and St. Lawrence County, must square their shoulders and immediately begin working together to find a way to make up for GM’s loss. And if one “economic developer”, as they apparently like to be called, utters the word “tourism,” I’m going to go paint a target on his or her back and declare open season. This is one economic crevasse that tourism isn’t going to even marginally begin to fill.

So the Massena town and village governments and the county Legislature should meet – today, not next week or next month – to come up with a plan of attack. They should also force GM to become a partner in this search, because any company that is going to shut out the lights and get on the bus out of town has a moral obligation to help out – cash would be a good start, but helping to market both their facility and the region will be just as important. If everyone doesn’t work together without parochial, petty or personal motives, the lost jobs may not be replaced. And if that happens, the region suffers.

posted by Kentsboss @ 1:28 PM