In State of the Union, President Biden touts Belvidere, Illinois as a "comeback story"
CHICAGO (CBS) -- In touting the achievements and improvements the country has seen since he took office just over three years ago, President Joe Biden highlighted a push to save an auto plant open in Belvidere, Illinois, in his State of the Union address Thursday night.
Belvidere is located about an hour and a half northwest of Chicago. Chrysler – now under parent company Stellantis – opened the Belvidere Assembly Plant there in 1965. The plant in recent years had fallen on hard times.
"Before I came to office, the plant was on its way to shutting down," Mr. Biden said. "Thousands of workers feared for their livelihoods."
And then at the end of February of last year, the assembly plant in Belvidere was indefinitely idled. The term means there is an intention to shut down a plant.
More than 1,000 people were put out of work.
But at the end of October last year – as the United Auto Workers and Stellantis came to a tentative contract agreement amid a strike against the Big 3 American automakers – an announcement came that the Belvidere plant would reopen.
'"The UAW worked like hell to keep the plant open and get these jobs back – and together, we succeeded," Mr. Biden said.
The plan is to reopen the plant in 2025. In addition to plans for the Belvidere Assembly Plant to reopen, there are also plans for a new Mopar distribution site and battery facility in Belvidere.
"Folks in Belvidere, I say, instead of your town being left behind, your community is moving forward again – because instead of watching auto jobs in the future go overseas, 4,000 union jobs with higher wages are building the future in Belvidere right here in America," Mr. Biden said.
Speaking to CBS 2 in the winter, Belvidere Mayor Clint Morris agreed that he had never heard of a turnaround like what Belvidere experienced.
"It is exceptional. It's the one singular story," said University of Illinois professor Dr. Robert Bruno, an industry expert and author, told CBS 2. "It is truly the lone case in American economic and labor history."
So who made the reopening happen?
"The workers made that happen," Bruno told CBS 2. "Never before has the UAW, through its collective bargaining process, been able to reopen a facility, pour millions of dollars into the facility and create thousands of jobs."
For the State of the Union address Thursday night, UAW President Shawn Fain was present -- along with third-generation Belvidere UAW worker Dawn Sims. The president mentioned having joined the picket line alongside the UAW in Michigan in September of last year.
"Shawn, I was proud to be the first president to stand on the picket line – and today, Dawn has a good job in her hometown, providing stability for her family, and pride and dignity as well," said Mr. Biden.
The story of auto manufacturing in Belvidere was an example of what Mr. Biden characterized in his speech as a "comeback story." He emphasized a broader American "comeback story" in his speech, emphasizing that the country was hit by the worst pandemic and economic crisis in a century four years ago, but, "Together, we achieved 15 million new jobs, the lowest inflation in the world, and 50-year low unemployment."