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Optics and sensitivities came into play in a place known for baseball, hot dogs and American tradition.
On Saturday, General Motors decided to remove its new 2019 Chevrolet Blazer SUV made in Mexico from the Comerica Park display in center field and replace it with a Chevrolet Traverse from the Lansing Delta Township Assembly Plant.
Some UAW workers objected to the foreign-built vehicle display.
"It’s very distasteful for people," a UAW worker at a Detroit-area GM plant told Jamie L. LaReau of the Detroit Free Press. "We’ve done outings to Tigers games. I don’t know if that’ll change or not based on the product sitting on the marque. We have a lot of pride."
GM has put its cars atop the Chevrolet Fountain for 10 years.
The controversy comes as the union bargains for new contracts and fights to keep some plants from closing.
GM issued a statement:
“We want people to enjoy baseball without distractions, so we are going to replace the Chevrolet Blazer with a Chevrolet Traverse at the Comerica Park fountain. American workers contribute significantly to the success of the Chevrolet Blazer. The Blazer will pump more than half a billion dollars into the U.S. manufacturing economy each year, helping support thousands of good-paying U.S. jobs.”
