WTOL.com - Toledo's News Leader | Mayor Ford Makes a False Accusation
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NEW YORK -- A group of democrats slammed the president on Thursday for costing the country more than a million jobs. One of them was Toledo Mayor Jack Ford who made an error about a Toledo company.
Mayor Ford joined others in New York to blash the President Bush's economic policy. In Toledo alone, Mayor Ford blames the president for closing plants and costing the city 16,000 jobs over the last four years.
Ford pointed specifically to 'Supreme Bumpers' which is a firm that folded in March of 2003. The plant opened in 1961 and made chrome plated bumpers for the auto industry. "A company called Supreme Bumpers moved off shore, taking eighty jobs, UAW jobs, by the way," said Ford.
A former plating supervisor at 'Supreme Bumpers' says Ford doesn't have his facts right. Bill Downs says that's not true. He says competition closed the plant, because auto companies decided to no longer use chrome to make bumpers. The automotive industry dumped chrome for plastic on their bumpers.
As for the 80 employees who once worked on these decaying plating lines, they found new jobs or retired. A spokesperson for the mayor's office apoligized saying the information the mayor received was inaccurate.
Posted 7:00 pm Thursday, September 2nd
vfiorello@wtol.com
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