Sir Issac Newton’s Third Law of Motion, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction,” has escaped the confines of physics. No longer is it relegated to stuffy college classrooms or a high school physics lab of disinterested students and an underpaid teacher. Newton’s third law is universal, with General Motors getting an uncompromising refresher this past week. According to the Detroit Free Press, the Detroit-based automaker has decided to remove the 2019 Chevrolet Blazer from its display at Comerica Park, replacing the new red crossover with a white Chevrolet Traverse.
The problems started when General Motors began readying its advertising display at Comerica Park, the home of the Detroit Tigers MLB baseball team. Some thought the 2019 Chevrolet Blazer, which is built in Mexico at the Ramos Arizpe plant, wasn’t right for the Chevrolet Fountain display given that the automaker is in the process of idling four U.S. factories as it heads into contract negotiants later this year with the United Automobile Workers (UAW) union.Â
Unhappy followers contacted Metro Detroit’s WXYZ news station to question GM about its decision to display the Blazer. According to WXYZ, GM explained why it picked to display the Blazer, but avoided discussing the growing controversy. But it appears that GM was listening, since days after the Blazer went up, it was replaced over the weekend by the white Traverse – an American-made vehicle built at GM’s Lansing Delta Township plant.
The backdrop of the whole situation – closing factories, building the 2019 Chevrolet Blazer in Mexico, and the upcoming UAW contract negotiations – seemed like a perfect storm for controversy. Comerica Park is a short distance away from the GM Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant, which is still producing the Chevrolet Impala and Cadillac CT6 but is scheduled to cease all production at the end of January 2020. Production of the once iconic Chevrolet Volt at the facility has already ended, and the future of the plant remains in limbo. Ultimately, a Mexican-made Blazer looming over Tigers fans mere miles from a factory slated to be shut down and thousands of jobs lost is not a good look.
Since GM announced its massive restructuring plan back in November 2018, it appears to have made misstep after misstep in explaining itself. Every decision the company makes between now and when contract negotiations commence will be put under an intense microscope by the public, the media, and anyone else who is watching. Hopefully, GM remembers its impromptu physics lesson heading into the end of the year: everything it does will have an equal and opposite reaction.
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