Lordstown, Ohio: On a Friday afternoon in May, three men sat chatting on folding chairs inside Lordstown's local United Auto Workers hall. Normally, they'd be on their shift at the massive battery plant a few miles away. But they'd been out of work all year.
The factory - owned by General Motors and South Korea's LG Energy Solution - announced last fall that work would stop in January because of slow electric-vehicle sales. Their joint venture, Ultium Cells, indefinitely let go about 480 employees, and told the remaining 850 factory workers they wouldn't be needed for many months.
