GM: Won’t Intervene in American Axle Strike
March 11, 2008

A top General Motors executive said the automaker is concerned by the two-week strike against parts supplier American Axle & Manufacturing, which has slowed or stopped production at 29 GM plants. But he said GM won’t intervene in the dispute.

Fritz Henderson, promoted last week to GM president and chief operating officer, told The New York Times in an interview Monday that GM would be more concerned if it were losing sales due to lean inventories. The strike has mostly affected plants that make GM’s pickup trucks and large sport-utility vehicles, which are in abundant supply and low demand.

Meantime, negotiators for American Axle and the United Auto Workers have been meeting daily since March 6 but there’s no sign they are near a settlement. Workers are protesting the company’s desire to cut wages in half, a move American Axle contends is necessary to compete with rivals.

GM is the largest customer of American Axle, which was created from former GM parts operations.

GM said Monday nearly 42,000 of its employees — about half of its manufacturing workforce — has been affected by the strike. Eleven plants in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Missouri and Ontario, Canada, have been idled, and 17 factories have stopped making some transmissions, engines, sheet metal and other parts. An assembly plant in Wisconsin began running on shortened shifts Monday.

Posted by Michelle Krebs at 8:27 AM under Business , GM , Personalities | Comments (0) | digg this | Seed Newsvine