General Motors has touted its work to put laid-off workers back on the payroll at various other facilities in the United States, but nearly 1,500 workers are still without a solid transfer opportunity.
Currently, 508 employees are actually laid off, while 700 remain at the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant until January 2020, and another 265 workers remain at the Warren Transmission plant. The transmission plant will idle this August. The Detroit Free Press released the layoff numbers and confirmed the math was correct with GM in a Monday report.
Total, 2,800 workers have been at risk since the automaker announced its North American restructuring last November. The plan included four plant closures in the U.S. and one in Canada. In the U.S., the Lordstown and Detroit-Hamtramck car assembly plants will idle, and two transmission plants will join them: a plant in Michigan and one in Maryland.
The transmission plant in Baltimore, Maryland, will shut down this week. The Warren, Michigan, transmission plant will join it in August of this year. As mentioned, GM will continue to build the Cadillac CT6 and Chevrolet Impala at the Detroit-Hamtramck plant through January 2020. Then, another 865 workers will need to find new opportunities.
GM spokesman Dan Flores said the automaker is still in the process of placing workers in new positions and confirmed employees have moved to numerous other plants across the U.S. So far, 593 workers have left the Detroit-Hamtramck plant after Chevrolet Volt and Buick LaCrosse production wrapped up this past February; another 670 workers have transferred from the Lordstown plant, while 28 have left the Warren plant and 14 additional workers found new work from the Baltimore plant.
Flores added the remaining laid-off workers will have other opportunities at additional plants. GM announced plans to invest in the Orion, Michigan, plant earlier this year for a new Chevrolet electric car. A second shift is planned for the Bowling Green, Kentucky, plant for mid-engine C8 Corvette production, and Flores hinted the Arlington, Texas, plant is gearing up for launches this year. Arlington builds GM’s full-size body-on-frame SUVs: the Tahoe, Suburban, Yukon, and Escalade.
Even though GM has provided the opportunity to transfer, it hasn’t changed the matter that some workers simply can’t move. The final outcome of the four plants in the U.S. slated for idling, and eventually, closure, will be determined in UAW labor negotiations later this year.
Subscribe to GM Authority for more GM manufacturing news and around-the-clock GM news coverage.
Source: The Detroit Free Press
Comments
Used Chevy Cruses are literally flying off dealer lots all around me. It really surprises me that demand for new ones has softened to the point where axing this car is the only option. It will mean more sales for the new Corolla and Civic for sure. A damn shame as these are a nice driving smaller car save GM’s poor packaging and cheapness with de-contenting.
Well if that is the case you had better tell Honda not to cut to one shift at Marysville. Slowing small car sales have cut them from 3 to one shift. They also have killed production in England. VW is now looking to kill the Golf here accept for imports of the GTI and R models.
Toyota is experiencing the same declines.
If you are going to pedal BS then fine a more gullible crowd.
The shift Honda is cutting is a sub-line within its plant that only runs on afternoons. The main line is still running two shifts.
The Corolla and Civic finish number 2 and 3 in sedan sales in the top 10 with the Accord at position 4 so far for 2019 model year. Actually the Corolla is up 1.01 % and with the new model may climb higher than that. Notice in my comment nothing was mentioned about VW Golfs or pickup trucks or SUV’s just sedans. The only thing I’m pedaling are facts. The Cruze has slipped down to 12th place and dropping. And the point of my post was that if GM tried harder with more competitive pricing, more std equipment, better designed options packages and a performance variant plus that thing called advertising they may have been able to hold onto more years sales regardless which plant it was made at.
With the Verano, Dart and Focus gone their is literally nothing left for the consumer to buy from an American manufacturer.
Hey, that word would be ‘peddle’, not ‘pedal’ in this context.
I feel Lordstown and Hamtramck will get new product even if it is repatriated from other countries like Mexico and China. The UAW cannot afford to roll on these. Doing so will open the door for more US plant closings in the next contract. Of course there will be special provisions at these plants to hire lower paid workers to do the work UAW members once did.