Maryland Lawmakers Call General Motors Closure Announcement “Poor Corporate Citizenship”
U.S. Senators Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin, along with Congressmen Elijah Cummings, C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, John Sarbanes and Jamie Raskin (all D-MD) have sent a letter to General Motors Chairman and CEO Mary Teresa Barra requesting a meeting to discuss the company’s decision to terminate operations at its White Marsh facility, calling it an “example of extremely poor corporate citizenship.”
The company announced it will cease production at the transmissions plant in Maryland, which employs 400 hourly, salaried and contracted workers. The state-of-the-art 580,000 square-foot facility has received hundreds of millions of dollars at the federal, state and local levels since it opened its first White Marsh plant in 2000 and its second in 2012. The plants are home to a top-tier workforce based on GM’s own corporate metrics.
“We believe that White Marsh’s highly skilled workforce, modern facility and experience with production lines, from electric motors to transmissions, can and should be repurposed to meet GM’s new business objectives,” the lawmakers wrote. “GM has a responsibility not just to its shareholders but to its workforce and the taxpayers who provided the company with so much financial support.”
General Motors has received more than $245 million in grants from state, federal and local governments to grow its operations and a $50 billion taxpayer bailout. The White Marsh closure is part of a larger restructuring plan that will eliminate 15 percent of the company’s North American workforce and shift much of its production to China and Mexico.