[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 14865]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      ECONOMIC TROUBLES IN THE 17TH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT OF OHIO

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I would like to rise today to speak 
about an issue that is important to our community in Northeast Ohio, 
specifically, the city of Warren and the city of Youngstown dealing 
with the auto task force and the bankruptcies that have been going on 
in the auto industry. The community that I come from has been adversely 
affected not just over the past few months or few years but really over 
the past 30 years. We've seen the loss of a tremendous amount of jobs. 
The home of Delphi, the original Delphi, the original Packard Electric, 
started many years ago by the Packard brothers; a General Motors plant 
in Lordstown; steel mills, all have been adversely affected over the 
past 30 years, but specifically over the past few months and few years, 
given the new problems in the auto industry.
  And every day that we wake up, and we read The Warren Tribune or The 
Youngstown Vindicator, we've been getting bad news about layoffs--
Severstal Steel goes idle, 1,000 jobs; General Motors plant takes off 
the third shift, takes off the second shift, few left on the first 
shift. Delphi went from 15,000 employees 20 or 30 years ago down to 
just a few today. A group that has also been adversely affected with 
maybe not as much attention as it should have been given are the Delphi 
salaried employees, who many have spent two-thirds of their careers 
working for Delphi, working under the General Motors umbrella; and 
helping with the engineering, the designing, the running of this 
company, have spent their lives, spent a lot of their time, missed a 
lot of baseball games, missed a lot of kids' events over the course of 
their careers, dedicating their lives to this company.

                              {time}  1715

  They are now finding themselves in a very difficult position as we go 
through this restructuring to where many of them have taken a buyout 
and were promised a supplemental to get them to Social Security, and 
now through the restructuring they may not only lose their pensions, 
but they are also going to lose their supplemental. They are also 
losing their health care. And this is a group of people that 
contributed to this company, contributed to this country, for many, 
many years, and deserve to be heard.
  Our community that has suffered all of these blows can only stand so 
much. And here are another 15,000 salaried workers across the country, 
but probably about 1,000 in our community, that have done the right 
thing, have paid their taxes, paid their property taxes to fund the 
schools and the libraries, supported the communities, did the right 
thing, and now are being extremely hurt by the situation.
  So I, along with many others in the Ohio delegation, Senator Brown 
and others, Representative Boccieri and Representative Charlie Wilson, 
Marcia Fudge, a lot of others, have been spending time trying to raise 
awareness and push the auto task force to consider these 15,000 people 
across this great country who have contributed in such a significant 
way to the auto industry, and we want to make sure that the auto task 
force recognizes that as these decisions are being made, some already 
are made, that they are made fairly and equitably; that these people 
who have served the company as significantly as others get the same 
kind of recognition, the same kind of support, and they are not asked 
to bear the brunt of the whole burden.
  As the new GM tries to reinvent itself and get back up on its feet, 
it is important that they don't lose, and I think it is important for 
the auto task force to recognize this, Mr. Speaker, that they don't 
lose a core constituency of General Motors consumers. Former employees 
who have been loyal to the company, 15,000 of them, should not only be 
considered, but it is a basic tactic for marketing purposes. These are 
people who want to be loyal to General Motors, who want to be 
supportive of General Motors, and feel like they are being forced to 
bear a major brunt of this.
  Again, I rise today because I have lived and worked here, and these 
are people who have coached me growing up and been involved in all of 
our lives and are such a critical component to our community. Many 
times I have risen on this House floor to talk about the workers and 
the unions and how the Amwells and the Youngstown Steel Doors and the 
UAW workers and the steelworkers have been hurt, but workers are 
workers, and these people deserve to be heard just as much as anyone 
else.

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