May 5, 2009

Kohl presses Kenosha's case to auto advisor

A day after Kenosha autoworkers rallied to save their Chrysler engine plant, Sen. Herb Kohl, D-WI, met met with Steven Rattner, the U.S. Treasury Department’s lead advisor charged with restructuring the U.S. auto industry.

Kohl met with Rattner during a closed meeting of the Senate Banking Committee. Rattner is a member of the interagency task force established by the administration to restructure the auto industry and oversee the bailout loans to save the car manufacturers.

“It’s galling that a company that came here, hat in hand, to plead for taxpayer money to survive would turn around and move jobs out of the country," Kohl said. "There is no place that Chrysler will find better skilled workers than they have in Wisconsin, and it’s important for the people making these decisions to understand that. It makes no sense to shutter the Kenosha facility and spend money to expand production elsewhere with unproven workers."

The closed committee meeting was off-the-record, but Kohl said he conveyed a similar message to Rattner on behalf of Chrysler’s Kenosha employees.

1 comment:

  1. Why wasn't Paul Ryan there too? Can his district take to automaker pullouts? Once again forgets about the little people.

    ReplyDelete