Jump to content
Create New...
  • William Maley
    William Maley

    GM Laying Off 2,000 Workers At Two Plants

      Declining sales cause GM to do layoffs at some their plants


    As sales of compacts and sport cars begin declining, automakers are faced with tough decisions as to what in terms of production and workers. General Motors made the difficult decision to lay off 2,000 workers at two plants.

    Bloomberg reports that GM will be cutting the third shift at their Lansing Grand River plant in Michigan (home to Cadillac ATS, CTS, and Chevrolet Camaro) and a shift at Lordstown, Ohio plant (home to the Chevrolet Cruze). GM spokesman Tom Wickham said the company is treating the layoffs as permanent, although some workers will be able to transfer to other plants.

    The layoffs are due to sales of compact and sports cars going down due to consumers buying more crossovers. Sales of the Chevrolet Cruze dropped 20 percent through October, while the Camaro has seen a drop of 9 percent.

    On the same day, General Motors announced a $900 million investment for three plants - Toledo Transmission Operations, Bedford Casting Operations in Indiana, and Lansing Grand River. Wickham said this investment would not add any new jobs.

    Source: Bloomberg, General Motors
    Press Release is on Page 2


    General Motors today announced initiatives to strengthen and align its production output at key U.S. manufacturing operations. The plans include investing more than $900 million in three facilities — Toledo Transmission Operations in Ohio, Lansing Grand River in Michigan and Bedford Casting Operations in Indiana —  to prepare the facilities for future product programs.

    GM also announced plans to align production output with demand for cars built at the Lordstown, Ohio, and Lansing Grand River, Michigan, assembly plants. As the customer shift from cars to crossovers and trucks is projected to continue, GM will suspend the third shift of production at both facilities in the first quarter of 2017. 

    Edited by William Maley

    User Feedback

    Recommended Comments

    The nature of the beast especially when it is the third shift.

    I am very happy to see the investments to keep things moving forward by GM.

    Plus we have as I reported in the Chevy thread the increase in production for the BOLT. Good news to the sad but expected reduction in head count for less desirable products.

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Well there are other things in play too.

    #1 GM is no longer just dumping cars on fleets. Other makers are also feeling the decline but many are dumping them on fleets.

    #2 GM no longer has to keep building cars to keep people working as there are generally less UAW contracts paying lots of money to idled workers like it used to.

    #3 Gas prices are always subject to change.

    #4 GM has raised profits with better ATP and lower cost in anticipation of the coming decline in the market. So profits are still coming in and retail sales increased even on some of these cars with only a loss of fleet sales.

    GM is also far from the only one slowing and shutting lines. The media has really been misleading on the web on several sites.

     

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    A few comments I'll add:

     

    #1  3rd shift was not going to last, even the workers should have known that. The only way they were going to last is if they were replacing retiring workers (like my dad). Even then there is still going to be cuts at plants like D-Ham in the near future as well....

    # 2 I expect the cars mentioned above to continue to decline, as the CUV/SUV is making a nice comeback....

    # 3 Due to some forethought by GM, I expect the Cruze to lose some money for a while. On top of the fact that sales are down, back in July GM thought it would be a good idea to bring up some production up from the AP plant in Mexico to help out. Well, guess what-they are now here on top of the Cruzes not selling, and more are still on the way. So, there will be a Glut of them for a little while. While it's not going to really hurt them, they are going to have to put some money on the hood to move them. This, on top of the hatches also on the way from Mexico....

     

    Now # 3 might change my mind about getting a Nox/Escape if the price ends up right, as I do like the Cruze, but not the price......

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    Guest Wings4Life(BANNED)

    Posted

    2 hours ago, SoCalCTS said:

    Maybe they can move ATS, CTS and Camaro production to Mexico or China to make them more profitable or at least offer better incentives.

    If Trump has his way, he will make it less profitable to do so.

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    1 minute ago, SoCalCTS said:

    Since Trump won theres no reason to support the rust belt. Maybe Canada would be a better place to move the ATS and Camaro.

    I hear Venezuela would love some manufacturing jobs! :P

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites

    27 minutes ago, Drew Dowdell said:

    Oshawa has the room

    Would not bother me in the least, actually.

    54 minutes ago, SoCalCTS said:

    Since Trump won there's no reason to support the rust belt. Maybe Canada would be a better place to move the ATS and Camaro.

    Agreed....

    53 minutes ago, dfelt said:

    I hear Venezuela would love some manufacturing jobs! :P

    Lots of places would, i think.  Given our current course of action,everything will wind up in sub Saharan Africa as everyone races to the bottom of the barrel.

    Link to comment
    Share on other sites



    Join the conversation

    You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
    Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

    Guest
    Add a comment...

    ×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

      Only 75 emoji are allowed.

    ×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

    ×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

    ×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.




  • Subscribe to Cheers & Gears

    Cheers and Gears Logo

    Since 2001 we've brought you real content and honest opinions, not AI-generated stuff with no feeling or opinions influenced by the manufacturers.

    Please consider subscribing. Subscriptions can be as little as $1.75 a month, and a paid subscription drops most ads.*
     

    You can view subscription options here.

    *a very limited number of ads contain special coupon deals for our members and will show

  • Similar Content

  • Posts

    • I'm glad this breakdown was in the article, because this was the first thing I thought of. I didn't think I was paying anywhere close to $250/yr worth of 18.3c gasoline tax, which I'm not, according to those numbers.  I can understand the EV tax being slightly higher due to the pretty significant weight different, but this is too much. This proposed tax should probably be cut in half, maybe more, IMO. $100/yr doesn't seem unreasonable. 
    • FYI - Using this story and my thoughts above, I wrote my House and Senate representatives on this and this is what I sent them:   Hello Suzan, Patty, Maria, Sam Graves, Republican for Montana and head of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is proposing a $250 annual charge for electric vehicles as part of an effort to shore up funding for the national highway system and other transportation projects. Graves stated that with the increase in electric, hybrid and just overall efficiency in internal combustion automobiles that the federal tax collected per mile traveled has dropped, making it a challenge to keep the Federal Highway Administration funded. With the new fees, Republicans hope to raise $50 billion in new funding over the next 10 years. The additional money would go to pay for highway repairs and additional funding for air traffic control. Republicans point out that since 2008, more than $275 billion has been shifted from the general fund to pay for road repairs.  The federal government has not raised fuel taxes, currently 18.3 cents per gallon, since October of 1993. The latest proposed fee schedule would be $250 per electric vehicle per year and $100 per hybrid-vehicle per year. An earlier proposal had the electric vehicle fee at $200 per year and also included a $20 per year fee for gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles.  The Federal fee would be on top of any state fees imposed. Many states have adopted EV fees to replace the loss in gas tax revenue at the local level. The federal fees are tied to inflation and would be recalculated each year and grow over time. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has pointed out that the proposed $250 fee would require the average EV owner to pay the equivalent 1366 gallons gas tax while hybrid owners would pay roughly the equivalent of 547 gallons of fuel tax on top of paying 18.3 cents at the pump. For an EV owner, they would be paying as much tax as someone driving 15,000 miles per year in an 11 mpg vehicle. The average amount of gas used by non-hybrid gasoline vehicles is roughly 489 gallons per year. I do not mind paying an equal share for my EV on the roads. Yet if they are going to charge me $250 then it is time to raise the gas tax equal to what Hybrid and EVs must pay. ICE = 489 gallons of gas X .183 cents per gallon = $89.49 cents per year based on the Governments only numbers. If they are to charge EVs $250, then they need to raise the Federal gas tax to .511 cents per gallon for equality and tie it into inflation so that gas tax goes up just as the Hybrid / EV tax goes up. With having to pull from the General fund $275 Billion to support the Federal Highway Administration, I find it a little odd that the estimated $50 Billion over 10 years really would make a difference compared to increasing the Federal Gas tax having everyone share in the responsibility to fund our inner state highway system. I look forward to hearing from you, Sincerely, G. David Felt   FYI 2024 according to statista.com, 134.55 billion gallons of gas were sold for the year. At .183 cents federal gas tax, that was $24,622,650,000 billion dollars collected in gas tax. At .511 center federal gas tax, that would have been $68,755,050,000 Billion collected in gas tax in addition to the Hybrid and EV fee that would be collected for our inner-state highway system.  
    • That is so true, all the shopping malls here have major charging areas that are free to the shoppers, but then pretty much anyone can pull in and plug in for an L2 charge. Most city government locations around here have free L2 chargers and Shell has many Volta free L2 charging at various tourist spots around Washington. Major work campuses have free L2 charging like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Boeing, Paccar, to name just a few.  Fast charging locations are growing as Tesla has signed with the Kroger / QFC / Fred Meyers locations for major charging stations and EVgo / ChargePoint / Electrify America have signed on with Walmart / Safeway / Albertson for stations in their parking lots. Costco has signed on with a private Seattle company to install fast chargers for a fee on their lots. So lots of changes coming for sure. Be interesting to see when the Auto Industry start up gets more places open other than the first one they did on the East coast.
    • One, EVERYONE needs to write their House and Senate representatives on this and make sure they are aware of this very imbalanced approach to funding a government department. With that said, I do not mind paying an equal share for my EV on the roads. Yet if they are going to charge me $250 then it is time to raise the gas tax equal to what Hybrid and EVs must pay. ICE = 489 gallons of gas X .183 cents per gallon = $89.49 cents per year based on the Governments only numbers. If they are to charge EVs $250, then they need to raise the Federal gas tax to .511 cents per gallon for equality.
    • I could see maybe if they add a $250 federal tax on all new car purchases as a 1 time fee.  But to charge it every year is both a ripoff and unfair.  Fast forward 20 years and 90% of cars might be EV, so the fund roads through gas tax will be totally obsolete.  And it will be a tax more so on lower income and working people.  And the gas tax basically works that the college student driving a 10 year old Corolla because that is what they can afford, will pay the same road tax as a pro football player in an Escalade.  
  • Who's Online (See full list)

    • There are no registered users currently online
  • My Clubs

×
×
  • Create New...

Hey there, we noticed you're using an ad-blocker. We're a small site that is supported by ads or subscriptions. We rely on these to pay for server costs and vehicle reviews.  Please consider whitelisting us in your ad-blocker, or if you really like what you see, you can pick up one of our subscriptions for just $1.75 a month or $15 a year. It may not seem like a lot, but it goes a long way to help support real, honest content, that isn't generated by an AI bot.

See you out there.

Drew
Editor-in-Chief

Write what you are looking for and press enter or click the search icon to begin your search