GM: 19 Plants Could Close Due to Strike
March 07, 2008

By Joseph Szczesny

More than 30,000 General Motors employees from 19 different plants could be idle by Monday as the fallout from the United Auto Workers strike at American Axle & Manufacturing Inc., now in its second week, spreads, GM officials reported Thursday.

GM was forced to close a fifth assembly plant Thursday when a plant in Wentzville, Mo., that builds full-size Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana commercial vans was idled due to a parts shortage.

A sixth assembly plant in Janesville, Wis., is now scheduled for a work week of only 20 hours, beginning Monday.

Truck assembly plants in Pontiac and Flint, Mich.; Fort Wayne, Ind.; Moraine, Ohio; and Oshawa, Canada, have already closed due to component shortages created by the strike against American Axle.

A seventh assembly plant — in Indiana belonging to AM General, which builds the Hummer H2 for GM — also is shut.

At least two other GM truck plants — in Shreveport, La., and Arlington, Texas — are still producing. Neither plant operates on a just-in-time inventory basis; instead, the plants carry larger inventories of key parts than do other plants. Supplies, however, could run out next week.

The Arlington plant builds GM's 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe and 2008 GMC Yukon 2-Mode Hybrid sport-utilities as well as the Cadillac Escalade. GM appears to be scurrying to squeeze extra parts out of its logistics system to keep the plant operating.

Nevertheless, GM has already begun shutting down the Baltimore transmission plant where it builds the company's brand-new 2-Mode hybrid transmission even though production of the 2-Mode transmission has not been affected yet, GM officials said.

The strike has cost GM production of its profitable diesel-powered, heavy-duty pickup trucks as the company confirmed it now plans to shut down a plant in Ohio that builds the 6.6-liter diesel engine.

GM executives have insisted they have ample stocks to ride out the strike. However, Alan Baum, an analyst with market research firm The Planning Edge in Birmingham, Mich., noted the pickup truck business is fundamentally different because there are so many variations today.GM is very likely to start running out of some certain models if the strike goes on much longer.

"Buyers want specific trucks. If they can't find them, they're going to go somewhere else," Baum said. In addition, the strike is shortening the time in which GM can claim to have the "newest" truck on the market.

Meanwhile, GM is now planning to shut down engine plants in Flint and Romulus, Mich., a metal-casting plant in Saginaw, Mich., and its Toledo Transmission plant by Monday if the dispute at American Axle isn't resolved. GM plants in St. Catherines, Canada; Bay City, Mich.; Parma, Bedford and Defiance, Ohio; and Fredericksburg, Va., are also slated to go idle Monday.

Chrysler LLC said it estimates its plant in Newark, Del., where it builds the Chrysler Aspen and Dodge Durango should be able to operate for another seven to 10 days.

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