By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma
joanne@wktv.org
Despite his own business wows with an electric bill at around $20,000, Mitten Pizza owner Jamie Zichterman did not blink an eye when it came to donating pizzas to the UAW Local 167.
“I think it was just the right thing to do,” Zichterman said. “Regardless of what type of issues we were facing, it was just something that we needed to.”
About 46,000 GM employees went on strike Sept. 15 which included 650 employees from Wyoming’s GM Holdings Components LCC, a subsidiary company of GM that makes auto parts.
The Mitten Pizza is located in Middleville with the nearest GM facility being the Wyoming plant. Because of the distance, the strike will have minimal impact on his business, Zicterman said, adding that he has seen an uptick in business that he credits to the amount of publicity he has had over his surprise electric bill of about $20,000 from Great Lakes Energy. Zichterman is currently trying to settle the bill with friends establishing a GoFundMe page to help pay it.
“What was surprising was to see the people coming in with UAW shirts buying pizzas and donating like crazy to the cause,” Zichterman said. “It shows if you do the right thing, good things will happen.”
Marilyn Free, manager of Marge’s Donut Den, said the Wyoming donut shop has not been impacted much by the strike either.
“Other than people stopping to pick up donuts for those striking, no we have not seen anything,” Free said, adding that people have been purchasing three to four dozen donuts at a time along with coffee to go.
Brian Long, director of Supply Management Research at Grand Valley State University’s Seidman College of Business, said in his monthly economics report, he is not surprised that there has not been much impact felt from the strike at this point since most of the local firms and businesses have diversified their customer bases.
“None of the firms in our survey is exclusively GM which was not the case from 20 years ago,” Long said. “Two of the firms I talked to indicated that they are actually stockpiling for GM. They figure that when GM does come out of this strike there is going to be a huge build up demand and they are going to need the parts that they are producing. However if this drags on for too long we may see some marginal layoffs.”
Long said regardless of the strike, the whole auto industry has been slowing down for 2019 with it being down about 1.6 percent on sales.
The Wyoming GM Components Holdings LLC has been building precision machined automotive components for almost 70 years. The plant makes such parts as lifters and the axle for full-size trucks. WKTV did contact a couple of local suppliers with one indicating that despite the warning on the GM Parts webpage about a delay in getting parts, they were able to continue fulfilling orders.
Todd Bartrand, owner of Wyoming’s Bob and Dave’s Garage, which like many similar independent garages purchase parts from suppliers and not directly from GM, indicated his business has not been impacted by the strike, yet.
“So far, so good,” Bartrand said. “I guess if it does not get resolved soon we might feel it, but for right now, we have not noticed anything.”
Congressmen Bill Huizenga (R) in a recent interview with Fox Business said he has reached out to a number of suppliers that supply GM.
“Our suppliers are kind of mixed. Some of them are really afraid as they have slowed down and had to lay people off voluntarily that they may not be able to keep doing that voluntarily and they would have to do layoffs,” Huizenga said, adding that there is some concern that these employees would seek employment in other industries.
The strike is now four weeks old. UAW officials have stated that issues have been temporary employees becoming full-time GM workers, wages, pensions, and job security.
A GM spokesperson said “We continue to negotiate and exchange proposals, and it remains our goal to reach an agreement that builds a stronger future for our employees and our company.” For more information, visit the company’s website, buildingastrongerfuture.gm.com.
