Watch–GM Workers Hold Prayer Vigil to Protest Michigan Plant Closure

American workers with General Motors (GM) held a prayer vigil in protest outside GM’s Warren Transmission Operations Plant — set to close — in Warren, Michigan on Friday as nearly 300 employees are threatened with unemployment.

This year, GM is stopping production at four American plants, including Detroit-Hamtramck and Warren Transmission in Michigan, Lordstown Assembly in Ohio, and Baltimore Operations in Maryland. This comes after GM laid off about 1,500 American workers in Lordstown in 2018, while their Mexico production remains unaffected and production in China ramps up.

At the beginning of the month, GM executives began laying off 14,700 workers in the United States and Canada, with the majority of the layoffs concentrated in Michigan, Ohio, Maryland, Georgia, and Texas, including at least 3,300 American factory workers. These layoffs included the mass layoff of at least 4,000 American workers in white-collar jobs for GM, many of whom were older and had worked at the corporation for more than two decades.

At the Warren Transmission Operations Plant in Warren, U.S. workers gathered together in prayer to protest GM’s closing of the plant, which will result in the layoff of at least about 300 Americans.

“Father God, most of all, we thank you … we’re going to see the miracle where cars are being built here in the United States of America in the name of Jesus,” United Auto Workers (UAW) Chaplain Regina Hill said. “So father God all these prayers and everything that’s been set in front of us today, father God, we’re expecting great things to happen in the mighty name of Jesus.”

“I’ve been talking to my God … I said God you’ve got to do something,” UAW Chaplain Phillip Jackson said. “This is an opportunity to show your hand of grace and mercy … I need you to bless your people beyond measure because I believe that as Detroit goes, the state of Michigan goes and if Michigan, then the entire United States is prosperous.”

Already, Americans in supporting industries have started losing their jobs due to the nationwide GM plant closures. Nearly 400 U.S. workers in industries that supported the GM Lordstown, Ohio manufacturing plant are set to be laid off.

Despite the mass layoffs of thousands of American workers, GM CEO Mary Barra has continued raking in about $22 million a year.

American manufacturing is vital to the U.S. economy, as every one manufacturing job supports an additional 7.4 American jobs in other industries. Decades of free trade, with deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), have devastated American manufacturing and U.S. workers’ job prospects, as well as suppressed their wages.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.