Belvidere Places!
Folks are celebrating Stellantis’s most recent announcement to reopen the Belvidere Assembly - and I’m glad to hear it too. Regardless of the type of vehicle produced at the plant, having those union jobs back in Belvidere is a great thing. However, as someone who celebrated a similar win back in November 2023 can attest - it’s not over till the cars roll off the line.
It feels good to take the win, to publish newspaper ads aligning your side with the exciting announcement. Finally “they” have seen the light and our side has won. Maybe we even feel a bit like our leadership and local efforts made the difference. That’s how I felt when the first announcement was made and it was such a big deal that we got a visit from POTUS himself. No visit this time, alas. The reality for all of us who live here is this: billionaires and giant corporations will ultimately decide what happens to the plant, and 2027 is a long way off.
I congratulate those who worked in the interim between November 2023 and now to salvage a deal to open the plant. I got to meet several of them last year and have great respect for their efforts. I’ll state again that getting those jobs back here for working families as soon as possible is something we all want. Since we’re all speculating on future possibilities though, I would like to add one which I think is just as likely to come true.
The year is 2035 and the plant has been operational now for a little over 5 years. There were some initial delays due to demand in the industry being soft. Now it is up and running, usually at full capacity. Demand for light gas trucks hasn’t taken off as expected - but domestic sales are decent. Turns out the rest of the world believes climate change is real, and electric cars have continued to grow in popularity. The fallout from tariff wars has allowed electric vehicles from foreign competitors to gain a strategic edge on American companies. We’re glad the plant is running now, our local economy depends on it - but the internal combustion engine is starting to feel like legacy technology. Plotted on a product life cycle chart, it is a product in decline. Conversely, electric vehicles are in their growth stage. Rather than gaining a product whose viability stretches into the future, some feel that we’ve been saddled with technology at the end of its life. How long will we have until the billionaires and corporations return to upend our community again? Perhaps we didn’t win back in 2025, but simply placed.
