The head of the union local that represents workers at the only Indiana plant on General Motors’ closings list says they’ve made many concessions in hopes of keeping the factory open.
GM already had the Indianapolis metal-stamping plant on a schedule to close in December 2011, but the company said Monday it could close even sooner.
“They didn’t give us a date, just that we would be closed by the same date of December 2011 — or sooner. We really didn’t get a date out of them,” said James Kendall, the president of United Auto Workers Local 23.
Kendall said union members have agreed over the years to significant contract concessions in a bid to save the plant, which employs about 800 people, of which about 100 are salaried workers.
“We still want the company to be successful. The UAW has never been the company’s problem — they’ve made a lot of money over the years with UAW-represented employees,” he said. “The people here deserve this facility to stay open, but unfortunately it’s not up to us.”
GM’s restructuring plan keeps open its Indiana plants in Fort Wayne, Marion and Bedford.
The 22-year-old Fort Wayne plant, which employs 2,600 people, will stay open while GM closes its 37-year-old Pontiac Assembly Plant in Michigan. Both plants make Chevrolet Silverado and GM Sierra pickup trucks.
“We don’t have good plants and bad plants,” said Tim Lee, GM’s vice president for North American manufacturing. “We have older ones and newer ones, and Fort Wayne Assembly is a newer plant.”
The Marion Metal Center, a stamping plant 50 miles south of Fort Wayne with about 1,000 workers, will remain open as GM closes stamping plants in Indianapolis and Mansfield, Ohio, that are farther away from assembly plants.
“Location of the plants is extremely important from a logistics standpoint,” Lee said.
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