Not many in region buying job promises
YOUNGSTOWN — If only it was as simple as President Donald Trump makes it sound.
It never has been. The longsuffering Mahoning Valley was a charter member of the “rust belt” long before the phrase became politically incorrect.
All those old, shuttered hulks of the valley’s steelmaking heyday — what Trump called “big, once incredible job-producing factories” — will come roaring back to life, the president told his supporters Tuesday.
Don’t sell your homes, Trump told a packed house of 8,000 at a Covelli Centre rally. Don’t move in search of employment. Those long-lost jobs, “they’re all coming back.” It was similar to his promises to coal miners and others from the 2016 campaign.
Exactly how the fortunes of the Youngstown-Warren area will suddenly and dramatically improve did not accompany Trump’s remarks last week.
The valley, a traditional Democratic stronghold long hungry for good jobs, cast a larger share of its votes for the Republican last fall. It has
heard promises from politicians and presidents across generations.
But they have only sporadically translated into bottom-line improvement for residents of the Youngstown-Warren region, which has lost nearly 20 percent of its population since the mills began closing more than three decades ago.
Few, beyond perhaps Trump’s most hard-core supporters, expect a return of a lot of high-paying factory jobs. Instead, the area’s advocates are concentrating on diversifying the Valley economy beyond blast furnaces and assembly lines.
Youngstown Mayor John McNally, a Democrat, was polite, saying it would be a “challenge” to resurrect all those long-gone jobs in heavy industry.
“It’s one of those promises that the previous Democratic campaigns have tried with residents around here. Unless you can deliver on that promise, coming back the next time the response may be different from folks,” he said. “I don’t think this area as a whole believes those jobs are coming back. I don’t know why we keep hearing it.”
But Trump supporters say he deserves a chance to deliver on his promises.
“He came back to the area to check on the people. He hasn’t forgotten Youngstown,” said Marleah Campbell, auxiliary chairman of the Trumbull County Republican Party. “He’s trying to do what he wants to do but getting no cooperation. The Republicans need to get behind him.”
It’s hard to envision a manufacturing revival when the Mahoning Valley is fighting to hang on to what it already has amid an area economy that has bled away some of its better jobs just since the start of Trump’s presidency.
United Auto Workers Local 1417 trustee Jeff Terrace, a survivor of the stamping line at one of the pair of General Motors’ plants at Lordstown, saw the speech as typical untempered, over-promising Trump.
“I’ve been a gambler all my life. He’s one of those guys who’s all-in on every hand regardless of what he holds. We haven’t seen any action. It’s all talk,” said the 57-year-old Terrace.
The lack of demand for small cars led General Motors in March to eliminate the third shift at the plants that build the Chevrolet Cruze. More than 1,000 jobs were lost, including some at area suppliers of seats and bumpers.
The area’s unemployment rate stands at 5.9 percent, 20 percent higher than the statewide average. Even after a slight comeback, 700 fewer manufacturing jobs exist now than in January, according to federal figures. The overall jobs picture, however, has improved from an 8.2 percent unemployment rate in March because of growth in many lowerpaying positions.
Terrace and fellow stamping-line worker Ernie Long, 39, are disappointed that Trump and his administration have not yet abandoned or renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada, as he promised.
Addressing NAFTA might help retrieve the production of the Cruze hatchback model from Mexico, might help restore the lost third shift at Lordstown, the men said. Trump told the Youngstown crowd that if he doesn’t get a “great deal,” he will terminate the pact.
Noting that Trump’s overseas-made, Trump-branded products and his moves to hire more foreign workers at a golf property, Long was displeased that Trump has not demonstrated an all-out commitment — quoting the signs held by his rally supporters — to “Buy American, Hire American.”
“He’s supposed to be bringing all these steel jobs back. Where are they?” he asked. “It’s all smoke.”
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, asked the same question last week at Wheatland Tube in Warren, where he implored Trump to amend an executive order to implement legislation he introduced with Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, to require American-made steel and products in all federally funded infrastructure and public works projects.
Sarah Boyarko, senior vice president of economic development for the Youngstown/ Warren Regional Chamber, stresses diversity and support jobs for emerging industry and trades as the key to Mahoning Valley job growth.
“We learned from our past experience with the steel industry about having most of our eggs in one basket, and it just doesn’t look that way anymore,” she said.
A $70 million Obama administration initiative, America Makes, was established in Youngstown to attract investments and provide job training and ongoing development of 3-D printing in metals.
Efforts continue to attract jobs in health care, warehouse distribution and logistics, well-drilling support and high-tech manufacturing. The area also is already attempting to position itself to capture petrochemical and plastic support jobs related to the proposed PTT Global Chemical America $6 billion ethane cracker plant in Belmont County, she said.
The chamber also is trying to to attract more support service jobs for the aluminum industry. The Youngstown-Warren area produces the second-largest amount in the nation.