<i>[bright musical flourish]</i> <i>[tense music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>SABRINA: Rick Marsh is about to lose</i> <i>the only real job he’s ever had.</i> <i>RICK: 25 years invested in a place.</i> [inhales] It just sucks. <i>I’ve worked at General Motors since I was 19.</i> <i>Out here, man, this is it.</i> <i>You make your life around your job.</i> <i>SABRINA: It’s not because he wasn’t good at it,</i> <i>and it’s not because the economy’s down.</i> <i>Rick is losing his job because General Motors</i> <i>is preparing for a seismic shift in the auto industry.</i> <i>The company’s decision will upend thousands of lives,</i> <i>jeopardize local economies,</i> <i>and transform politics.</i> <i>You might say to yourself, “What GM’s doing isn’t fair.</i> <i>It owes its very existence to these people.”</i> <i>But you might also ask yourself</i> <i>this difficult question.</i> <i>What’s fairness got to do with it?</i> - Today’s the day we build the last car. <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>Today, all of our lives are going to change.</i> <i>Whether we want it or not.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>SABRINA: The General Motors plant is Lordstown, Ohio.</i> <i>It’s the first thing you see</i> <i>when you get off Interstate 80.</i> <i>It was this area’s economic engine</i> <i>for more than 50 years.</i> <i>And it’s about to close.</i> <i>This may sound familiar.</i> <i>Another plant shuttering in another Midwestern town.</i> <i>But look a little closer.</i> <i>There’s something bigger going on here.</i> <i>A new and very powerful force</i> <i>is ripping through this Ohio valley</i> <i>It’s a force so disruptive</i> <i>that it’s making people question</i> <i>the very nature of our economic system.</i> <i>We’re about to see what happens when car companies,</i> <i>Wall Street, and Silicon Valley collide.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>I’m a national reporter, and for almost a decade,</i> <i>I’ve been coming to places like Lordstown,</i> <i>because they tell us a lot</i> <i>about where this country’s headed.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> [horns blaring] We’re going to win this one. Stick together. - Hi. - Hi. - Who are you? - Hi, my name is Sabrina. - Hi, Sabrina. My name’s Werner. - Hi, Werner. So I’m a journalist from “The New York Times.” - Wow! - Yeah. Now, why do you come out in this freezing cold weather? - I come out here to show my dedication as a community supporter. I live in a neighboring community, and if this plant sinks, that community sinks. In fact, the entire valley sinks. That would be an American tragedy, and we will not let that happen. We can’t rely upon business as usual. We can’t rely upon the politicians in office. They’re not going to go out and save us. We got to save ourselves. <i>[soft music]</i> <i>SABRINA: The job cuts in Lordstown</i> <i>were part of a major restructuring</i> <i>announced last November.</i> <i>It would stop production in five plants,</i> <i>and eliminate nearly 14,000 jobs.</i> <i>The company said this decision was critical for its future.</i> <i>The news became a flash point in an unusual political time.</i> <i>Votes long considered reliable are up for grabs,</i> <i>and even the basics of American capitalism</i> <i>are up for debate.</i> <i>DAVE: I walked around the plant after that announcement.</i> <i>Some people, their face just went white.</i> <i>Other people started crying.</i> <i>People looked confused.</i> <i>Is this for real? Is this the end?</i> <i>I’m still, like, in shock over this.</i> <i>SABRINA: Dave Green is the local union president.</i> <i>For months, he’s been rallying the community</i> <i>to fight the closure.</i> - How are you? - Good, you all right? <i>SABRINA: To convince GM not to give up on Lordstown.</i> - Hey! - Hey, sunshine. - It’s about coming together, standing together, and never giving up. It’s never over. - Mm-hmm. - Right? How are you? <i>SABRINA: It’s not just the jobs inside the plant.</i> <i>There are others.</i> - It’s going to hit the small mom and pop stores— - Yes it is. - And everything. <i>SABRINA: People who make the car parts,</i> <i>drive the trucks, store owners,</i> <i>waiters, teachers.</i> <i>The plant was at its peak in the 1980’s,</i> <i>employing nearly 12,000 people.</i> <i>When I got here, there were only around 1,500.</i> <i>[tense music]</i> - The objective today is to hear more from workers. <i>This is a community that’s always stepped up</i> <i>and always done it right.</i> <i>SABRINA: Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown</i> <i>has been here many times before.</i> - I know a lot of you have been at this plant for a long time. And when I talk to GM, I point out that GM got a huge tax cut, and too much of that money seems to want to end up in Mexico building a Blazer, or in stock buy backs for company executives. None of those strike me as fair-minded decisions by—by management. <i>GM has offered to transfer many of these workers</i> <i>to other plants, mostly out of state.</i> <i>Rejecting that offer could mean</i> <i>losing the job all together.</i> - How many years for you? - I have 17 years. I mean, I could pick up and move, but I don’t want to do that. Not fair to my family. Not fair to anybody’s family. Not fair to my kids. - All people want to do is come to work, do their time, have their families. Maybe create a little nest egg. Have some sort of retirement. Have decent healthcare. That’s all an American worker’s looking for. <i>[soft music]</i> And those jobs are getting harder and harder and harder to come by. Corporations forget... <i>SABRINA: These are pretty much the last</i> <i>good jobs in the area.</i> <i>Thanks to a strong union,</i> <i>the average GM employee made close to $85,000 last year.</i> <i>That’s twice the median income in this county.</i> - This is our national contract, which will be negotiated in September. - Mm, Dave, what’s at stake in terms of these jobs that might be lost? - One reason we want to protect the jobs, not just for our workers. Yeah, they can make a decent living, but if you’re making 30 bucks an hour, you’re probably spending 30 bucks an hour. If you’re making 15, you’re probably spending 15. This is about, like, moral and social values just as much as it’s about making 30 bucks an hour and having a good job. - Moral and social values in what way? - It shouldn’t always be about driving costs down so that companies can make more money. For what? What are they doing with that money? They’re not—if you’re not investing it in the people, and in the communities where you do business, then you’re a bad corporate citizen. <i>SABRINA: It’s an interesting question,</i> <i>and one these workers have every right to ask.</i> <i>But the company says this is bigger than Lordstown.</i> <i>Shuttering the plant, it’s about survival.</i> <i>[wind whistling]</i> <i>[tense music]</i> <i>The auto industry is facing an existential crisis.</i> <i>The ways we get around are about to fundamentally change.</i> <i>Self-driving cars are being tested on the road</i> <i>thanks to companies like Google.</i> <i>And soon, we won’t need as many cars,</i> <i>because more people will use</i> <i>ride sharing companies like Uber and Lyft.</i> <i>This means America’s largest auto maker</i> <i>isn’t just competing with Ford and Chrysler.</i> <i>It’s also going up against the tech giants of Silicon Valley.</i> <i>That’s why GM says it has to make cuts,</i> <i>including in Lordstown.</i> <i>So it can invest in a different future,</i> <i>one that’s autonomous, electric, and shared.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> What type of a change is this for the auto industry? - This is fundamental bedrock. The bedrock is shifting. The whole— what business we’re in. What’s our customer? What are we selling? Where do we make our money? Those are fundamental questions that management has to ask. - And that’s happening now? - It’s happening right now. The strategic decisions they make now is going to set up their financial future, and whoever makes the right decisions will increase market share, and those that make the wrong decisions may go out of business. - So are we looking at the death of the auto worker? - No. We’re looking at the transformation of the auto worker. <i>[tense music]</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>SABRINA: General Motors says that to survive,</i> <i>its focus needs to change.</i> <i>Here in a plant outside Detroit,</i> <i>the company’s making a big bet on two new cars.</i> <i>An electric car called the Bolt,</i> <i>and this,</i> <i>GM’s first fully autonomous car.</i> <i>[tense music]</i> <i>It’s expected to roll out this year.</i> WOMAN: Wow. Can we walk around a little bit? <i>SABRINA: You won’t be able to buy it.</i> <i>but you will be able to buy a ride in it.</i> - We’ve got cameras all over the roof module. - And what do these do? - They can tell us if it’s a pedestrian, if it’s a cyclist, if it’s a tree. - What’s the highest value of this car? - Certainly, the compute system. <i>SABRINA: She’s talking about the brains of the car,</i> <i>technology that GM acquired when it bought</i> <i>a Silicon Valley startup in 2016,</i> <i>reportedly paying close to a billion dollars.</i> How different is this car from an ordinary car? - 40% of the content is new. Designing the car to be self-driving, and to eventually remove the driver, we had to add a lot of new components. <i>MARY: We are driving the right decisions across the business</i> to ensure a strong, vibrant, and resilient future for General Motors. <i>SABRINA: The force behind this transformation</i> <i>is a GM lifer.</i> <i>Mary Barra joined the company right out of high school,</i> <i>and she rose to become the first female CEO</i> <i>of an American auto maker. </i>- Thanks, everybody. <i>SABRINA: This is the biggest change</i> <i>the auto industry has seen in 50 years,</i> <i>and she has to navigate it.</i> - Hi, nice to meet you. - I’m Sabrina. <i>SABRINA: If she fails,</i> <i>a lot more than 14,000 jobs will be lost.</i> - Thanks for taking the time. - Sure. - So big, big changes happening in the auto industry. What does that mean for the workforce at GM? - I think the workforce will need to transform, but I’m very confident that at General Motors, we will, because we’ve already done it. - And does GM become a different kind of company? - I think the company will look differently. It looks differently today than it did ten years ago. We’re much more of a software company now, and have, you know, many, many, software engineers throughout the company, because so much of the vehicle is now software-based system as opposed to a mechanical system. So I think we’re going to continue to evolve, but it will focus on the customer. <i>To do this, GM says it needs $6 billion.</i> <i>One way to get that money is to eliminate jobs</i> <i>and stop making unpopular cars.</i> <i>But it needs something else, too.</i> <i>Wall Street’s trust.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>To earn it, the company took some of its cash</i> <i>and bought back more than $10 billion in stock</i> <i>from shareholders.</i> <i>The market was delighted,</i> <i>but critics called it inappropriate,</i> <i>saying the money should have been spent on workers.</i> <i>SUSAN: I fully support the move to electric vehicles,</i> but what I question is whether there needs to— it needs to be done with so much destruction of existing capital, both human and physical. - So do you think that the way the worker has been treated by American companies has changed? - Managers and, you know, business students will tell you that their job is to maximize profit for the shareholders. This is, I think, a reflection of relatively recent ideology in the U.S. that companies exist for the benefit of shareholders. What it misses is that workers make huge investments in their companies. The workers are making investments, you know, in terms of their heart and soul. <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>RICK: BUT I’m not wishing this company to fail,</i> <i>because that’s like wishing</i> <i>the pilot of your own plane to crash.</i> <i>SABRINA: Rick Marsh followed his father</i> <i>into the Lordstown plant.</i> <i>He put in 25 years there,</i> <i>starting in the paint shop right after high school.</i> - I want to go to work, do my job, and come home and be with my family. That’s my American dream. <i>SABRINA: Rick doesn’t want to transfer to another plant.</i> <i>His daughter, Abby, has cerebral palsy.</i> <i>At 14, she can’t take care of herself.</i> <i>It took four years of therapy to teach her how to walk,</i> <i>and she has a lot of support in Lordstown.</i> - One-on-one home aids, one-on-one aided classroom, the Medicaid waiver, Ohio healthcare waiver. This is all stuff that don’t transfer state-to-state. - Pulling her out of here, and out of the school, that she’s in right now, and the aid that she’s with... - It’s detrimental. - Would be horrible for her. So we’ve even talked about me staying here and him going, but it’s just—how do you pick between those two? How do you pick? - It’s a hard choice. - I don’t want to make that choice. [laughs] - Have you looked around at all at other job options here in the area? - No. 25 years... You know, 22 years toward my pension. I’m so close. I’d be looking at 10 or 12 bucks an hour somewhere. I’m sure that’s what most jobs start out. - What would that mean for your family? [laughter] - 12 bucks an hour? I mean, we’d be bankrupt. <i>SABRINA: Rick probably won’t find</i> <i>a similar job in the area. There aren’t any.</i> <i>There’s not enough money or time</i> <i>given to re-training programs.</i> <i>Taking a free class on resume writing can seem pointless.</i> - I think that what big business in this country has done to the American worker is equivalent to treason. I think that they’re just— it’s never going to be enough. [chuckles wryly] It’s never enough. <i>SABRINA: General Motors owes an extraordinary debt</i> <i>to this country.</i> <i>When the financial crisis of 2008 hit,</i> <i>bad business decisions almost killed the company.</i> <i>ANCHOR 1: General Motors declared</i> <i>it was running out of cash.</i> <i>ANCHOR 2: General Motors has filed</i> <i>for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.</i> <i>ANCHOR 3: These auto companies can’t be allowed to fail.</i> <i>SABRINA: The American government</i> <i>had a difficult choice.</i> <i>Let GM die</i> <i>or invest $50 billion to save it.</i> Senator Brown, hi. Nice to see you. <i>GM may have settled its debt on the books,</i> <i>but for Ohio senator Sherrod Brown,</i> <i>the company owes its very life to the American taxpayer.</i> <i>And now, it’s not holding up its end of the bargain.</i> So GM says that what it’s doing is it’s trying to kind of re-organize itself. It’s saying it’s closing the plant because it wants to do electric and autonomous. Because it requires capital. Because it requires a different skill set. Do you believe that? - No. I believe they’re doing some of those things. - Do you think the plant needs to close for some other reason then? - No, I think they want to move production off-shore. They never make enough money. They want to pay lower wages. They want to get more tax cuts. They want to do more stock buy backs. I sound angry ‘cause I am. I have heard these same arguments every single time. Well, doesn’t technology say we’ve got to move overseas? Or doesn’t technology say we got to lay off these workers? Management never pays the price. The top—top managers never pay the price for these kinds of decisions. - What do you think the current social contract should be? - If corporations are going to only be interested in their stockholders and nothing else, it’s up to the government to say, “well, you don’t get these tax breaks “unless you start aligning your behavior with something that works for our country.” I don’t think they hate their workers. I don’t think they have no respect for their workers. But the workers never come first in these decisions. <i>[tense music]</i> - We did go to Lordstown, and we talked to workers there. - Mm-hmm. - And many of them said that they felt that it was unfair that they needed to leave. - So first of all, I understand it’s difficult. You know, you’re established in the community, and the network that you have, and that’s very important to people. But I also have to look at what’s important for the long-term sustainability of this company, and I need to make sure that General Motors isn’t around just for two or three years. I need to make sure it’s around for several decades. Running efficiently allows us to actually create jobs. If we try to preserve something that the customer no longer is interested in, that inhibits our ability to invest in the future. It’s a business that, if we aren’t profitable, we don’t have a right to exist. <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>SABRINA: Mary Barra says the company</i> <i>is helping displaced workers.</i> <i>It’s creating jobs in other plants</i> <i>and giving up to $30,000 to employees willing to transfer.</i> <i>In today’s economy, that’s rare.</i> <i>Rick Marsh says he doesn’t buy it.</i> <i>He worked hard. He was always on time.</i> <i>He endured short-term layoffs</i> <i>for the long-term good of the company.</i> <i>But in the end, it didn’t save his job in Lordstown,</i> <i>and Rick wants someone to answer for that.</i> - What’s happening with the plant now? Does it change politics at all in the area, do you think? - Sure, it does. - How does it change it? - Well, I’m sure you had more people around here voting for Trump, including myself, because he promised to bring jobs back. We need competitive manufacturing jobs. I really don’t care if it’s Democrat, Republican, male, female, black, white, I don’t care. Whoever’s in there, you need to put America first, and Americans working first. SABRINA: Rick, do you feel like things are changing in ways you don’t like or...? - Absolutely. - How do you think the country’s going right now? - In a bad direction. I think there’s only— you know... [exhales] They’re going to get to the point where people in this country have had enough. You know, without the ability to feed my family and pay for my children and feed my children, what am I, as a man? <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>NED: It’s very difficult to say,</i> for someone who’s busting their butt at a job that’s facing closure, and saying, “I feel sorry for you, but you got to go.” - And is that what we’re saying to these Lordstown workers? - That’s what the market’s saying. That’s what Mary Barra is saying. - And do you think that’s fair? - The economy isn’t about fair. Fair is political. Fair may kill the company. <i>Working class people, and people who feel like</i> <i>the social contract that they bought into.</i> <i>They led good lives, they’re bringing up kids,</i> <i>they want, possibly, to own a house,</i> <i>own their car, have a small retirement,</i> <i>have healthcare.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>That contract, they believe, has been torn up.</i> <i>And they did nothing wrong.</i> - And so, that has political consequence. - That has huge political consequences without an escape valve. <i>SABRINA: This is how the unwritten contract</i> <i>used to work.</i> <i>The company hired you on an assembly line.</i> <i>You joined the union.</i> <i>The company paid you good wages.</i> <i>You got good benefits. You bought a car.</i> <i>You bought a house.</i> <i>It all seemed so American.</i> <i>And politicians could say that the system was fair.</i> <i>That everybody won.</i> <i>But times have changed.</i> - I am convinced that with what is being done right here at the Lordstown Assembly Plant is what is the future of the automotive industry in the United States of America. - I want you to all know, I will not rest until anybody who’s looking for a job can find one, and I’m not talking about just any job, but good jobs that give every American decent wages and decent benefits, and a fair shot at the American dream. - Those jobs have left Ohio. They’re all coming back. They’re all coming back. [cheers and applause] They’re coming back. Don’t move. Don’t sell your house. <i>[tense music]</i> <i>SABRINA: There was talk of another company</i> <i>buying the plant, but to workers,</i> <i>it sounded like another empty promise.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>People here say the entire system is broken.</i> <i>Whatever fairness there was, it’s gone.</i> <i>That’s a political problem.</i> - Well, the next year should be interesting, to say the least. - People in Lordstown feel betrayed, both by Democrats and by Republicans. <i>I think a lot of it has to do with policies</i> <i>that really favor the rich.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> <i>SABRINA: It’s a new campaign season,</i> <i>and politicians are here again.</i> <i>Trump and the Republicans flipped Ohio in 2016,</i> <i>and Democrats want to take it back.</i> <i>They’re seizing on a central question.</i> <i>What do companies owe a place like Lordstown?</i> <i>And should the rules change</i> <i>if voters don’t like the answer?</i> <i>JOSEPH: The stock market is roaring,</i> <i>but you don’t feel it.</i> <i>Did you get anything from it? Of course not.</i> <i>ELIZABETH: We can’t afford</i> <i>just to tinker around the edges.</i> <i>Our fight is for big, structural change.</i> <i>[cheers and applause]</i> [horns blaring] <i>SABRINA: On March 6th, 2019,</i> <i>Lordstown made the last Chevy Cruze.</i> - So Werner, can you hear me, brother? - I’m behind you. - Oh, there he is. - I just heard you. <i>SABRINA: More than 700 people have taken transfers,</i> <i>but hundreds of others are staying,</i> <i>even if they don’t know what comes next.</i> ALL: UAW, UAW! <i>NED: The fundamental question is that if we cannot,</i> <i>with this one very important industry,</i> figure out as a nation how to get something other than a catastrophic hard landing. <i>♪ ♪</i> Is the country in political trouble, and is the long-term health of our democracy in danger? <i>♪ ♪</i> [horn blares] - If we can take over the street, then we can take over the plant, then we can take over the country. [cheers and applause] - That’s our car! [horn blaring] <i>DAVE: It just feels, you know, not fair.</i> - In what way? - I know life isn’t fair, you know? But these people have done nothing wrong. They’ve done everything asked of them. <i>They’ve done everything that they were supposed to do,</i> <i>and it still didn’t work out,</i> <i>and I guess, sometimes, it just works like that,</i> <i>but it feels like it shouldn’t.</i> <i>♪ ♪</i> - We’ll be all right. We’ll be all right. <i>♪ ♪</i>