Former Fuyao Glass Workers Share Their Experiences

Dayton, Ohio – A group of former employees from Fuyao Glass America Inc., a glass manufacturer with ties to China that took over an old General Motors facility in Ohio, gathered to discuss their challenging experiences in front of key U.S. lawmakers.

Tiffany Moore, who spent three years working at Fuyao, expressed her dissatisfaction during a meeting at the International Union of Electrical Workers in Dayton on Tuesday. “My time at Fuyao was pretty terrible,” she remarked. “The heat in there is unbearable; they don’t care,” she added, voicing her concerns in front of Representative Ro Khanna from California.

Representative Khanna, who is the ranking member on the House Select Subcommittee investigating the Chinese Communist Party, made a special visit to Dayton to oversee matters related to Fuyao.

Prior to this visit, Khanna had reached out to Fuyao with a request for a comprehensive set of documents, wanting details about wage strategies, working conditions, and possible violations of U.S. labor and immigration laws.

In an October 1 letter to Fuyao’s leadership, he noted that the company’s single response, dated September 23, failed to adequately address most of the committee’s inquiries and lacked any supporting documents. “Your approach to this investigation suggests a disregard for Congress’s oversight role,” Khanna stated.

He also pointed out that a more concerning interpretation of Fuyao’s lack of transparency might be that they indeed have something to hide, beyond existing reports and investigations around their practices. Notably, Khanna sought but didn’t receive formal approval to visit the factory in Lorraine, Ohio. Regardless, he went ahead and held discussions with numerous former workers.

During this roundtable, Demetria Hodges, a five-year veteran of Fuyao, shared how she believed the company actively worked to quash any unionization efforts. “They initially tried to intimidate us against voting for the union,” she recalled. “Then they dangled a $2 an hour raise, but we never saw that again,” she mentioned, referring to an increase from about a decade prior.

Another former worker named Darrell recounted a tragic incident where 57-year-old Ricky Patterson was killed in a workplace accident, highlighting issues surrounding safety and mental health. “After he was killed by the glass, we were still expected to come in and work the next day,” Darrell said. “We were all so stressed. He had just lost his mom, and now this happened to him.” His testimony resonated deeply with others in the room, underscoring the tense environment the workers endured.