6/1/09

Two plants saved from closing under new GM/UAW agreement



According to the Detroit Free Press, the 14 plants that General Motors is expected to announce for closure on Monday was going to be 16 plants until the UAW got its way on Capitol Hill. The union charged GM with closing factories, but instead of a commensurate reduction in production, GM was moving some of the manufacturing elsewhere, specifically China and Mexico.
GM said it will produce 1.83 million cars in the U.S. 2014 as opposed to 2 million today, and it would get one-third of its production that year from overseas. That one-third would notably be small cars, so much in play lately for every reason. The UAW suggested it would be amenable to "innovative labor agreement provisions" in order to make small car production work for GM domestically.
In that case it isn't Mexico or China that will suffer, but Canada. Our northern neighbor is expected to lose 23% of its GM export production (has anyone told CAW head Ken Lewenza yet?) while Asian importation climbs 98%.
For now, an assembly plant and a stamping plant have been spared from the initial list of U.S. closures. Another four plants have been designated "stand-by locations" that will come on line in case of a steep rebound in auto sales.
[Source: Detroit Free Press]

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