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Bowling Green Plant to Idle Dec 1st

Rob

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GM temporarily idles 2 plants on slow demand

The Associated Press October 27, 2008

General Motors Corp. will temporarily close two factories for one week each in the coming months to keep inventory in line with lower demand, the company said Monday.

Spokesman Tony Sapienza said the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant will be idled for one week starting Nov. 24. The factory employs 1,785 people and makes the Buick Lucerne and Cadillac DTS sedans.

A factory in Bowling Green, Ky., that makes Chevrolet Corvettes and the Cadillac XLR sports cars will be idled the week of Dec. 1. The plant employs about 900 workers. GM previously said that the Cadillac assembly line will be shut down that week.

Lucerne and DTS sales are each down 32 percent through the first nine months of the year. Cadillac XLR sales are off 26 percent and Corvette sales are off 9 percent.

The plants are scheduled to reopen after the one-week shutdowns.

GM has made announcements cutting more than 4,300 factory jobs in the past two weeks due to the shrinking U.S. auto market.

It also extended the temporary shutdown of its Wilmington, Del., assembly plant for three more weeks because of slow demand for the vehicles it makes. The factory's 1,500 workers make the Saturn Sky, Pontiac Solstice and Opel GT two-seat roadsters. The plant will be idled starting this week and reopen the first week of December.

GM said earlier this month that it will cut the plant's second shift starting Dec. 8, indefinitely laying off 400 workers.

In addition to cutting the second shift at Wilmington, GM announced earlier this month that about 700 workers at its pickup truck plant in Pontiac will be furloughed starting Feb. 1, and another 500 at the Detroit-Hamtramck sedan factory will be laid off starting Jan. 12.

The automaker also announced it would shutter its metal parts stamping factory near Grand Rapids by the end of 2009, costing 1,520 jobs. It also sped up the end of SUV production at its Janesville, Wis., plant to Dec. 23, eliminating another 1,200 positions.

In morning trading GM shares fell 42 cents, or 7.1 percent, to $5.53.
 
Boy, it would be nice to read some good news. It seems like more bad news every day.

Bruce :patriot:
 
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GM to temporarily idle 2 more plants

GM to temporarily idle 2 more plants

Jamie LaReau
Automotive News
October 27, 2008 - 4:08 pm ET

DETROIT -- General Motors has told employees at its Detroit-Hamtramck and Bowling Green, Ky., plants that they will have an extra down week this year.

GM spokesman Tony Sapienza said, "The market is telling us we don't need that many cars."

GM will idle the Detroit-Hamtramck plant for the week of Nov. 24. GM builds the Cadillac DTS and Buick Lucerne cars there.

The Bowling Green plant will be idled the week of Dec.1. GM builds the Cadillac XLR and Chevrolet Corvette cars there.

As of Oct. 1, GM had a 95-day supply of the Corvette and a 215-day supply of the XLR. It had a 70-day supply of the Lucerne and a 50-day supply of the DTS.

Through September, U.S. sales of all four of the vehicles have fallen from the first nine months of 2007: Corvette sales are down 9.5 percent to 23,384, XLR sales are off 26.3 percent to 1,039, Lucerne sales have declined 32 percent to 43,839 and DTS sales have dropped 32.4 percent to 25,790.

Both plants are running on a 40-hour workweek and are scheduled to reopen after the one-week shutdowns, Sapienza said.

GM has 1,700 employees at its Detroit-Hamtramck plant, assembling about 450 cars a day on an eight-hour shift. But that production will be dramatically reduced. This month, GM said it will slow the line at Detroit-Hamtramck effective Jan. 12. That is a reduction from 56 jobs an hour to 38, which equals about 266 cars built a day. Starting Jan. 12, at least 500 people will be laid off.

GM employs about 800 workers at its Bowling Green plant, assembling 500 to 600 cars a week on one 40-hour shift, Sapienza said.

GM last halted production of the Corvette during the week of Oct. 6, its first inventory-related closing of the Corvette plant since at least 1995.

GM said at that time when Corvette assembly resumed during the week of Oct. 13, the line speed would drop from 18.5 vehicles an hour to 15, GM spokeswoman Sharon Basel said, adding that GM also expects to lay off an undetermined number of employees there.
 

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