The workweek after Thanksgiving opened with a shudder as General Motors announced that it would stop production at four U.S. plants and one in Canada, dooming more than 14,000 jobs. As protesting workers walked out of their assembly plant into freezing rain east of Toronto, as President Trump upbraided GM chief executive Mary Barra for killing jobs in Ohio, what struck me most was the eerie echo of another announcement by the same automaker a decade ago.
On the morning of June 3, 2008, General Motors issued a death sentence for four other North American factories. Among them was the Janesville Assembly Plant, the oldest operating plant in the GM firmament.