MiddletownJournal.com

MORAINE — Local officials aren't giving up on the future of the General Motors SUV assembly plant.

Dave Hicks, Moraine city manager, noted that the plant at Kettering Boulevard and Stroop Road — where more 2,000 workers are employed — has been in danger before.

"This isn't the first time the epitaph has been written for that plant," Hicks said.

In December 1991, then-GM chairman Robert Stempel identified the lack of a clear-coat paint line as a weakness for the Moraine plant. In that same month, GM announced a restructuring that would close 21 plants.

Local government and union leaders rallied to the plant's cause. By June 1993, construction workers were pouring concrete and raising steel for a $155 million paint facility at the corner of Stroop Road and Springboro Pike. Part of that facility stretches above Stroop Road today.

Hicks and others indicated they are not ready to give up on the plant.

"This surely strengthens our cause a little bit," Hicks said. "We'll be more creative and more aggressive."

Hicks and Michael Davis, Moraine economic development manager, took part in a GM press conference with Rick Wagoner, the automaker's chief executive, this morning, June 3 at Miami Valley Communication Council offices. Hicks heard Wagoner's announcement that the Moraine plant and three other plants that build trucks and SUVs will be closed by 2009 or 2010. But Hicks isn't ready to give up.

"There's no plan for another product there, but that's the same thing we've heard before," Hicks said.

John Harlow, shop chairman of the union that represents workers at the local plant, echoed those comments. He intends to fight for the plant, he said.

"That's exactly what we're going to do," said Harlow, of the International Union of Electronic Workers-Communication Workers of America Local 798.

He said he and Gaylen Turner, president of the local, will meet with IUE-CWA international representatives Wednesday to discuss their strategy for the plant.

"We by no means are going to give up the fight to keep jobs at this plant," Harlow said. "We're hoping the economy picks up."

Added Harlow, "We'll take anything we can get. I mean, obviously, we want something that pulls two shifts. But we'll take anything we can get right now."

Kelly Schlissberg, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Development, said state leaders are talking with GM to see if anything can be done to salvage the Moraine plant.

"We're trying to figure that out right now," Schlissberg said.

She acknowledged that GM decision-makers are offering no reason for hope.

"To be honest with you, we're getting the same message," she said. "You're right on that. But that doesn't change our mission here."

Some observers aren't optimistic.

"I actually think they won't be able to save that plant," said David Healy, an analyst with Burnham Securities.

The shift in the market is not temporary, Healy believes.

"Those large vehicles were in a certain sense a fad," he said. "People were buying these huge vehicles with off-road capabilities they never used."

"People were using these (large vehicles) as ordinary passenger cars, and they can't afford that anymore," Healy said.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2390 or tgnau@DaytonDailyNews.com.

Vote for this story!