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Another GM supplier announces layoffs

LORDSTOWN — A company that provides industrial services inside the General Motors plant is the latest to announce it will permanently lay off its workforce as a result of the GM facility being idled in March.

Leadec Corp., which in part provides janitorial, mechanical and maintenances services inside the facility, informed the state it will lay off 63 employees who belong to United Auto Workers Local 1112 and 10 non-union employees on March 8 — the scheduled last day for all employees at the plant.

In what’s called a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) letter to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, the company states “unforeseen business circumstances, specifically” GM’s notice to Leadec in February its services would no longer be needed in the plant as the reason for the mass layoff.

The company is headquartered in Germany and has offices around the globe. The U.S. office is in Cincinnati.

Thirty-eight of the union employees work in janitorial. Eleven more are booth cleaners; seven work in mechanical; three are in maintenance tech positions; and two each in electrical and service attendant, according to the notice dated Tuesday.

Non-union salaried employee positions are nine supervisors and a health and safety manager.

Leadec is the latest supplier to feel the ripple of the GM’s decision to idle the plant.

Lordstown Seating Systems, which makes the seats for the Lordstown-built Chevrolet Cruze, announced in late December it will lay off “virtually all” of its 120 employees sometime between Feb. 28 and March 8.

And Source Providers in Austintown, a warehousing, sequencing and logistics facility under Comprehensive Logistics, announced just after the first of the year it will lay off March 8 a “significant portion” of its workforce, which is about 180 employees.

The only client for the company was the General Motors plant.

GM is idling five of its other factories in North America, including its plant in Lordstown, this year as the automaker eliminates 14,000 salaried and blue-collar jobs as part of a restructuring effort to boost profit margins, prepare for a downturn and invest more in electric and autonomous vehicles.

The last day for about 1,600 blue- and white-collar employees in Lordstown is March 8. The plant that opened 53 years ago is where the Chevrolet Cruze is produced. The vehicle is being eliminated from GM’s lineup.

About 370 of the 560 GM Lordstown employees who volunteered to transfer to another GM facility have already been placed, according to the latest transfer figures from GM.

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