UAW Blasts GM’s Plan to Build Chevy Blazer in Mexico

The United Auto Workers wasted no time attacking General Motors’ plans to build the 2019 Chevrolet Blazer in Mexico.

GM’s confirmation the new Blazer would be built in Mexico came just as blue-collar workers assigned to the second shift at the automaker’s assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio were completing their last day of work before being idled by the company’s decision to reduce production of the Chevrolet Cruze.

“This news that the iconic Blazer nameplate will be built in Mexico is disappointing to UAW families and communities across this country,” said UAW Vice President Terry Dittes, who is now in charge of the union’s GM Department. Dittes took over the GM Department following the union’s constitutional convention earlier this month.

“GM employs over 15,000 production workers in Mexico, pays the workers less than $3 per hour and exports over 80% of the vehicles to the U.S. to sell here. This is all happening while UAW-GM workers here in the U.S are laid off and unemployed,” he said.

(Get a first look at the 2019 Chevrolet Blazer. Click Here for the story.)

“We in the UAW have always supported products manufactured and produced in the U.S. and will continue to do so as a part of the fabric of our union,” Dittes added, continuing the union’s long-running attack on North American Free Trade Agreement.

The union has maintained for two decades NAFTA gives carmakers to shift production to Mexico.

GM had eliminated the third shift at the Lordstown plant, traditionally one of the company’s busiest facilities back in January 2017.

(Click Here to see more about GM’s Lordstown facility.)

Dayna Hart, GM spokeswoman, said in an e-mail that planning for building the Chevrolet Blazer had been underway for some time.

“As you know, product allocation decisions in the auto industry are made years in advance. This decision was made several years ago and was based on available capacity at that time,” Hart said.

Product allocation was a key issue during the last set of contract talks between the UAW and GM back in 2015. The Trump administration took office in January 2017, vowing to end NAFTA because it was a bad deal for the U.S.

(To see more about Chevy escalates truck engine wars with four new offerings, Click Here.)

GM’s layoffs in Northeastern Ohio also have meant pink slips from companies doing business with GM Lordstown, according to the Youngstown Vindicator, which also wrote a blistering editorial attacking GM’s decision to eliminate jobs in northeastern Ohio while adding production to the company’s assembly plant in Ramos Arizpe, Mexico.