General Motors canceled shifts at several of its assembly plants this week after severe winter weather hit parts of the South and Central United States.
The automaker canceled all three shifts at its Spring Hill Assembly plant in Tennessee and Arlington Assembly plant in Texas on Monday, while the second shifts at Bowling Green Assembly in Kentucky and Wentzville Assembly in Missouri were also called off.
In addition, the first shift was canceled on Tuesday at the Spring Hill and Bowling Green facilities, while the first and second shifts were canceled at the Arlington plant as well as the Fort Wayne Assembly plant in Indiana, according to GM Communications Senior Manager Dan Flores.
Winter weather conditions can slow or prevent operations at the assembly plants, create dangerous driving conditions for workers and prevent the delivery of parts, GM spokesman David Barnas told The Detroit Free Press.
Roughly 8,000 employees are affected by the shift cancellations. A UAW spokesperson told the Free Press that workers impacted by shift cancellations will receive most or all of their regular pay for those shifts, as per the union’s labor contract with the automaker.
The Arlington Assembly plant in Texas may be offline for longer after unusually cold winter conditions caused significant power outages throughout the state. The automaker cancelled the third shift at Arlington on Sunday due to dangerous road conditions before calling off all three on Sunday. The Arlington plant builds the automaker’s popular and profit-heavy line of full-size SUVs, including the Chevy Tahoe and Suburban, GMC Yukon and Cadillac Escalade.
The automaker intends to make up for as much lost production as possible once it can bring employees back to work, Barnas also said. The Spring Hill Assembly plant builds popular crossover models including the Cadillac XT5, Cadillac XT6 and GMC Acadia, while Wentzville produces the GMC Canyon and Chevy Colorado mid-size pickups. The Bowling Green Assembly plant, which was also shut down for two weeks earlier in the month due to parts shortages, builds the C8 Corvette. The Fort Wayne Assembly plant builds the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra full-size pickups.
In addition to GM, several other automakers also canceled shifts at their U.S. plants this week due to power outages and disaster declarations, including Ford, which halted production of the F-Series pickup and Transit Van due to the cold front.
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Comments
All bs they didn’t have chips anyway
Can anyone Estimate delivery of an XT6 ordered in early Dec? ?Ron
I note no Canadian plants shut down to the “cold” or storm.
You’ve never lived in the South, I take it. These states only get 1 good snow per year, so its uneconomical for them to maintain a fleet of snow plows and salt trucks to keep the roads continually open. They simply shut down until the snow is over, stuff starts melting, and the small number of plows they do have catch up. In these states, it’s expected to get a snow day or two per year.
I lived and worked in California for 13 years and have been in Texas in an ice storm. I came to realize the drivers in the southern states have difficulty driving on wet roads and are hopeless on icy roads. In winter I race cars on ice .
The Lansing Delta Township plant (Traverse & Enclave) went home after 2 hours this morning (2/17) and second shift was called off. At first, only second shift was to report tomorrow, but subsequent emails stated that everybody is supposed to be back starting dayshift tomorrow. No one seems to know what parts we were lacking, but obviously the issue has been fixed.
How long will wentzville be closed