GM: 14 plants to close by 2011

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http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200906011152DOWJONESDJONLINE000419_FORTUNE5.htm
Quote:
DETROIT -(Dow Jones)- General Motors Corp. (GM), coinciding with its bankruptcy filing Monday, said it will shutter 17 factories and parts centers by the end of 2011. It will also cut an additional 5,000 salaried jobs.

The closures will reduce GM's U.S. facilities to 33 from 47 by 2012. Between 18,000 and 20,000 workers will be affected by the shutdowns, General Motors North America Manufacturing Vice President Tim Lee said during a conference call Monday. Employment reduction will be done according to terms in the United Auto Workers agreement.

The closures are expected to result in lower fixed costs per vehicle sold and more efficient capital investment. Plant efficiency is expected to jump with the reduction of the assembly plant count, Lee said.

Seven factories in Michigan and plants in Ohio, Indiana and Tennessee will be closed, the auto maker said in a statement. Two of the closures had been previously announced, including a castings factory in Massena, N.Y., which closed May 1.
 
The Chrysler plant near me is closing. The workers actually get a much better severance than I ever would have expected. Seems hard to feel sorry for them when they get a couple years pay for leaving.

The companies that supplied the plant, and the small businesses nearby are the ones I feel for. I doubt most of those employees will get anything for loosing their jobs.
 
It sucks for the entire Auto industry that is downsizing and the snow-ball effect it gonna hurt many people across the country.

Some cities are doomed since they rely so heavily on the workers income being spent in the immediate area and surrounding businesses.
 
Sounds like it will make finding an American-made car, by an American-owned company that much higher.

I really do not care to buy a Mexican made car, and only marginally care to buy a Canadian-made car. For folks like me, it pushes it will begin to push to the manufacturers who build in the US, and those that build in their home countries... Likely driving to German and japanese companies.
 
The failure of GM? The failure of government? The failure of capitalism? Or all of them?

Or . . . deja vu.

P.R.R. . . . N.Y.C. . . . PennCentral . . . bankruptcy . . . Conrail . . . Norfolk Southern & CSX.

Seems we've seen this drama unfold before. Heard all the same arguments in '74. Neither a quick nor a pleasant story no matter which side you're on.
 
I just like to get a word in before this thread is locked. uh...word. ok, I'm done.
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Originally Posted By: LT4 Vette

GM dependent Tennessee town left to uncertain fate- CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/06/01/GM.bankruptcy.spring.hill/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

A town like this will be in serious trouble when GM closes the plant.



Springhill TN never did like GM much as many workers were imported from Michigan and elsewhere. The local people were promised the jobs when the deal was made with local governments then the UAW forced GM to bring in all the unemployed UAW workers sitting idle at other plants. The area received only a fraction of the revenue promised. Lots of sour grapes from the local people who pushed for the idea of a new employer in the area. The story talks about a guy who came there from CA. How would you feel if you were a local resident that looked forward to the possibility of a new job only to see it given to recently transplanted out of towners?
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Just more "smart management" from GM and the UAW. Now the people in TN get screwed over twice.
 
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In a good year (the last one was around 2003)GM makes a profit of around 2 billion,so how are they ever going to pay back - what are they up too, 87 billion?
 
Originally Posted By: LT4 Vette

GM dependent Tennessee town left to uncertain fate- CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/06/01/GM.bankruptcy.spring.hill/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

A town like this will be in serious trouble when GM closes the plant.



They were in serious trouble when they stopped making saturn vehicles there, shut the plant down for 18 months paid their UAW employees 90% of their pay to stay home just to configure the assembly line to make the Chevy Traverse. I think they started building them in 2007. Then I sat back and watched gas shoot to $4/gallon last year. Now it's announced they won't build the Chevy Traverse after November, it will get shipped to a Michigan plant. Theory now, since TN is a red state and Michigan is a blue state. Michigan will get to build a new small car there. The spring hill plant is FUBARED.

Funny story, I toured this Spring Hill plant three years ago with my wife. An elderly retired couple was with us. The tour guide asked us what vehicles we drive. I said we came in on a Pontiac Vibe, but I also own a Pontiac Sunfire. The old couple said they drive a Honda Accord. The tour guide's face went blank. He made some kind of comment, maybe after the tour, you will buy a Saturn. Well after the tour, I asked the elderly people on the way out. If they plan on getting a GM vehicle. They told me "no, we love our honda accord, we have had it for over ten years. We haven't had any problems with it".
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My co-worker who used to work at that Spring Hill plant for 15 years told me if you drive a foreign car in the parking lot there. Your car will get keyed. She told me that she had a toyota when she first started working there, she got a flat tire on the first day on the job there. She said she has never gotten a flat tire in over 30 years of driving besides that day. She soon learned to get rid of it, now she drives Chevy's.

Today, when I told her about the GM bankruptcy, she called her friends at the Spring Hill plant to see how they were doing. When I told her that GM is doubling my GM card earnings to buy a GM vehicle by 6/30. She was putting some serious pressure on me to buy. I told her I was waiting.
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Quote:
The spring hill plant is FUBARED

If you haven't seen Michael Moore's movie 'Roger & Me' about the GM plants shutting down and the financial havoc it caused.... PLEASE watch it.

Will Spring Hill TN be the next Flint MI ?
 
Originally Posted By: PT1
Originally Posted By: LT4 Vette

GM dependent Tennessee town left to uncertain fate- CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/06/01/GM.bankruptcy.spring.hill/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

A town like this will be in serious trouble when GM closes the plant.



Springhill TN never did like GM much as many workers were imported from Michigan and elsewhere. The local people were promised the jobs when the deal was made with local governments then the UAW forced GM to bring in all the unemployed UAW workers sitting idle at other plants. The area received only a fraction of the revenue promised. Lots of sour grapes from the local people who pushed for the idea of a new employer in the area. The story talks about a guy who came there from CA. How would you feel if you were a local resident that looked forward to the possibility of a new job only to see it given to recently transplanted out of towners?
smirk2.gif
Just more "smart management" from GM and the UAW. Now the people in TN get screwed over twice.


It does suck BIG time that they are closing it.

While the local economy does rely on GM for jobs, it no longer is the sole bread & butter. 10 years ago, different story as the population was around 6,000 people back then. Now, about 26,000. Many people have moved here and don't work for GM, never have and probably never will. That sort of diversified ecosystem will allow the town to weather the storm, even though the town was singlehandedly built from Saturn.

GM would be wise to open this modern plant or sell it to someone who can use a modern plant...with or w/o the UAW in tow.


Really, most of GM should have been closed down and restructured. GM is a bloated Titanic that somehow is getting enough repairs to make it to shore, to the detriment of the taxpayer.
 
It's going to be worse than this...just give it a few months...


So many companies are going broke..just watch that unemployment rate hit....15 percent, maybe?


This is the perfect time for any comapany to trim the fat and blame the auto industry for it.


Should be interesting...
 
Originally Posted By: Volvohead
The failure of GM? The failure of government? The failure of capitalism? Or all of them?

Or . . . deja vu.

P.R.R. . . . N.Y.C. . . . PennCentral . . . bankruptcy . . . Conrail . . . Norfolk Southern & CSX.

Seems we've seen this drama unfold before. Heard all the same arguments in '74. Neither a quick nor a pleasant story no matter which side you're on.


Well, Norfolk Southern is doing OK, right? CSX was taken over by them last, right?

What is your take in the cliffs notes style? Has the mighty Pennsylvania Railroad come full circle into something decent in Norfolk Southern, or are things on a permanent decline to failure again?
 
the plants they close here will soon open in CHINA . It's about corporate greed , profit margin . The gap between poor and rich gets wider . This mess has been in the making for decades . You can lead a S.U.V. to the gas pump , but you can't fill it up due to the price of fuel and the 30% credit card rate . Something has to give . Unfortunately the economy .
 
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Originally Posted By: Cutehumor
My co-worker who used to work at that Spring Hill plant for 15 years told me if you drive a foreign car in the parking lot there. Your car will get keyed. She told me that she had a toyota when she first started working there, she got a flat tire on the first day on the job there. She said she has never gotten a flat tire in over 30 years of driving besides that day. She soon learned to get rid of it, now she drives Chevy's.


Wow, just wow.
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Originally Posted By: smokey1
. It's about corporate greed , profit margin .


I don't agree. It's about a power grab, a pay-back for the continued union voting block. The US Gov't running car companies? There's no profit margins when it's a non-for-profit, by definition.

The irony of all this, and this is what I agree with you on, is that these jobs will be going overseas. So the UAW will 'own' GM, but the workers who make up the rank & file of the union will POOF!...be gone.
 
Originally Posted By: LT4 Vette
Quote:
The spring hill plant is FUBARED

If you haven't seen Michael Moore's movie 'Roger & Me' about the GM plants shutting down and the financial havoc it caused.... PLEASE watch it.

Will Spring Hill TN be the next Flint MI ?


Yeah, but didn't Roger and Me focus on Flint, MI? GM used to employee 80k or so people there according what I heard this AM.

I can't believe Shreveport dodged the bullet with it's Hummer H3 lines. But evidentally they are going to leave the line there so that they can then contract to build them for whoever buys Hummer??? I also saw something on TTAC that Shreveport may get one of the new GM micro car lines???
 
Reality is the run rate was 17 million cars a year in the US give or take a million the last 5 or so years. Right now they are selling maybe 10 million run rate for all parties.

Now when things get better maybe reality is 13 million. So 5 million units have to go, so many of these plants have to go and the production consolidated in remaining plants which should run 3 shifts. All the flex plants which can make multiple models should stay and use high capacity utilization, all the other go.

I dont feel sorry for Saturn, it was an arrogant business plan based on a sub standard over priced product. Money should have been invested into Chevy. Basically they were so arrogant you pay sticker price for a small car. I never bought into the Saturn story and every person I knew who bought one was happy at first until they realized they paid way too much and the car wasnt really that good. The service and sales part may have been good but who cares, it was as my cousin told me, "it was like paying premium for solid cherry furniture to find out you got stuck with cherry veneer and particle board." All who I knew who bought them were 1 trick ponies who never went back and switched back out of GM brands. It wasnt because they didnt offer anything else just that the car wasnt really anything to write home about that you could buy from other OEM's for less money.

I remember some people where I worked toured the Saturn plant and they were bragging about how much money they spent on the plant and how all the trees were marked via GPS, removed instead of cutting them down and brought back and replanted to tune of millions??? No wonder Saturn was never profitable.
 
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