By Brian C. Louwers
C & G Staff Writer
WARREN — In the shadow of the General Motors Technical Center last week, Mayor Jim Fouts showed his solidarity with the domestic auto industry he said is so closely tied to Warren.
The mayor’s sentiments were printed on new bumper stickers, designed by a member of his staff, summarizing his stated intention to insist that members of his staff buy American automobiles, particularly those manufactured by General Motors Corp., the city’s largest corporate taxpayer, and Chrysler LLC.
“I was talking with my staff at our last staff meeting. I mentioned that General Motors has a serious financial problem,” Fouts said. “We have a lot of workers who work at Chrysler. We have a lot who work at General Motors. We have a lot who are retirees. We have to do something to help out General Motors and Chrysler.”
As one way of doing that, Fouts said he came up with the idea of producing free bumper stickers, which read, “Buy American Products. They Are Better and Safer.”
He said he would also insist that his own political appointees at City Hall back up the program by driving American-made vehicles themselves.
“I basically said that is a must. Along with that, I gave an order to have the purchasing director begin purchasing only American-made products, providing it’s financially feasible,” Fouts said. “In addition, I thought that we ought to look at negotiations with our city unions to see if we can’t come up with some incentives to encourage our employees to buy automobiles from the Big Three.”
Mark Bolick, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 1250, said the union would support the mayor’s call to buy American products “110 percent.”
As for Fouts’ appointees, City Attorney David Richards said it is within the mayor’s power to hire or fire them for any reason or no reason at all — barring certain key exceptions — because they are at-will employees.
The exceptions include discrimination based on race, sex, or national origin, situations in which union protections exist, or circumstances in which contracts would prevent an appointee’s outright dismissal in the absence of certain conditions that had been agreed upon and spelled out in the contract.
“In those cases, where the mayor has the right to appoint or terminate and he doesn’t violate one of those other things, the mayor has the authority to do what the mayor chooses,” said Richards, who currently drives a Chrysler Sebring but just recently bought a Chevrolet Impala. “That means you don’t have to have a particular reason.”
For the record, Fouts said he drives a 2001 Chrysler Concorde himself.
Apart from American cars, Fouts said he’d encourage the purchase of American products in general, for reasons he said go beyond economics.
“I want to look at the big picture,” Fouts said. “I bought some towels from Macy’s. I got home and took a shower that night and dried off with them, and they were like sandpaper. They said they are all made in India. My American [made] towels absorbed water.
“We can’t afford to stand idly back and let General Motors go the way of the towel industry and the way of the electronics industry,” Fouts added.
