Shingle workers worried by RTD plan

The Denver Post April 23th, 2009. Quotes from the story:

"This is the wrong location; this is the wrong time," said R.J. Fernandez, 38, a 17-year employee of Owens Corning, about the proposed rail maintenance center. "We need to look at finding a different location."

"If you put it somewhere else, we could actually gain 300 jobs," said Jackie Brinton, wife of a 27-year Owens Corning employee, in pleading with RTD to build the maintenance center in a location where factory jobs would not be lost. "We need manufacturing jobs so we have diversification of our economy."

"Please reconsider another site and not put at risk these two world-class facilities," added Daniel Frayre, who has worked at Owens Corning for 26 years. He now heads a nearby Owens Corning asphalt plant which supplies that material to the roof shingle production line.

Please click on the title for the complete story regarding RTD's plan to build a commuter rail maintenance facility and the related story that appears today. Since the "preferred" location is the current Owens Corning property near the Mouse Trap, the workers are naturally concerned about their jobs. I have my own ideas regarding the viability of commuter rail but the immediate concerns are the Owens Corning employees, suppliers and their families.

I certainly don't want to see RTD proceed with any plan that might endanger any part of what little manufacturing we have left in the U.S. I have no idea if the Owens Corning plant is a union shop but regardless, here's a chance for ATU Local 1001 to take a stance I'd support. Strange bedfellows and all that.