TONAWANDA TOWNSHIP — Erica Michael of Blasdell said 75% of her regular weekly pay was lost after Sumitomo Rubber announced it would close its Tonawanda Town plant.

Michael owns his own trucking company, Green Gloves Buffalo LLC, and has been hauling tires from Sumitomo six days a week for the past six months.

“There were a lot of promises every day that I could actually make checks for my family,” Michael explained to me.

Sumitomo was his biggest customer.

“My wife and I were trying to start a family, and you don’t think that something you do every day and work hard to make happen is going to disappear overnight,” Michael said.

Michael is very empathetic 1,500 Sumitomo employees recently laid off. He said he knew many of them by name.

“It was really like a family there,” Michael said. “Everyone loved their jobs and they made my life easier, which made it easier for me to work six days a week.”

For the past eight years, Michael has enjoyed being a truck driver transporting tires or groceries throughout New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Canada. But industrial work has become harder to find, he said.

“I was making money, handing over my fist, and now I saw the money dwindling before my eyes,” Michael said.

As the holidays approach, Michael said he will have to make personal budget cuts, but he is determined to find more work.

“It’s unfortunate, but you have to get over it,” Michael said.

On Wednesday afternoon, Joshua Hall, president of American Local 135’s United Steelworkers, told me that the union had proposed a plan to Sumitomo leaders to keep the plant open. Hall said the company agreed to look into it. The location of the meeting and who attended is kept secret.