Letter to Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors - Schumer, Gillibrand, Morelle urge General Motors to immediately begin producing ventilators at Rochester plant; Reps say Rochester workforce can and should play a role in coronavirus fight

Letter

Dear Ms. Barra,

As General Motors begins efforts to increase production of ventilators and other products to help in our nation's response to COVID-19, we urge you to consider locating some of this production at the General Motors Rochester NY Components plant. The over 1.75 million sq ft Rochester facility is uniquely equipped with a large Class 100,000 Clean Room that can be purposed to manufacture items that require a more sterile environment, as well as other capabilities to perform high volume assembly including injection molding and precision laser welding.

The leadership of the United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 1097 which encompasses Rochester' over 800 hourly union workforce have apprised us of their desire to perform this work and contribute to our nation's efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. GM's quality award winning team in Rochester, with its proven track record of producing quality parts, has long demonstrated its capacity to deliver for GM and its customers and now stands ready to do the same for our nation's hospitals, medical personnel, and first responders. This same Rochester facility that invented mechanical fuel injection in the 1950's, quadrajet carburation in the 1960's, and refined hydrogen fuel cell technology in the 1990's, can continue to innovate to help meet today's COVID-19 response challenges.

We appreciate GM's efforts to leverage its manufacturing facilities and expertise to support our nation's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as GM's March 20th announcement to join with Ventec Life Systems. This will enable Ventec to leverage GM's logistics, purchasing and manufacturing expertise to ramp up production of ventilators to supply our nation's hospitals. As you begin this work, we encourage you to look to GM's Rochester facility. With more than $200 million in upgrades in recent years this facility is ISO -14001 certified and boosts a hard-working, productive workforce that is second to none. Rochester is strongly suited to enable GM to quickly ramp up production of ventilators and other products needed in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

We appreciate your consideration of this request and thank you and General Motors for your efforts to aid in our nation's response work.

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