GM lays off 164 while blaming UAW strike
2 plants affected in Ohio and Indiana, ‘no work available’
General Motors began laying off 164 employees across two facilities Monday as a result of the expanded UAW strike, putting the number of those laid off in connection to the strike at more than 3,800 known so far across the industry.
On Friday, United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain ordered workers at Ford Motor Co.’s Chicago Assembly and at General Motors’
Lansing Delta Township Assembly to walk off the job. Fain spared Stellantis from additional targets, saying the union has made significant progress in contract talks with that automaker.
The strike action comes after Fain announced the first wave of plants the union would strike as: Ford Michigan Assembly Plant (Final Assembly and Paint only) in Wayne, Stellantis Toledo Assembly Complex in Ohio and GM’s Wentzville Assembly in Missouri. In the second wave, some 5,500 workers at 38 parts distribution centers at GM and Stellantis also went on strike nationwide.
In a statement sent by GM spokesman David Barnas on Monday, the automaker wrote: “The UAW leadership’s decision to call a strike at GM Wentzville Assembly, and now GM Lansing
Delta Township Assembly, continues to have negative ripple effects.”
It said starting Monday, 130 union-represented workers at GM’s Parma Metal Center in Ohio and 34 union-represented workers at Marion Metal Center in Indiana “will have no work available.”
“The affected team members are not expected to return until the strike has been resolved,” GM said in its statement. “Since we are working under an expired labor agreement, there are no provisions for company-provided SUBpay in this circumstance. We have said repeatedly that nobody wins in a strike, and this is yet another demonstration of that fact. We will
continue to bargain in good faith with the union to reach an agreement as quickly as possible.”
The UAW and GM were in bargaining sessions Monday. In a statement to the Detroit Free Press, Fain said, “The decision to lay off workers is not a ‘ripple effect,’ it’s a decision made by the company to put the squeeze on our members to accept a weak contract. GM owns it, and GM owns the fact that they took over a month to respond to our proposals, and have taken over another month to make serious progress.”
This is the second time GM has laid off employees due to strike activity. On Sept. 20, GM idled its Fairfax Assembly Plant in Kansas City, Kansas, and laid off most of the 2,000 workers across two shifts there indefinitely. GM blamed the strike at Wentzville for the layoffs saying it was “due to a shortage of critical stampings supplied by Wentzville’s stamping operations to Fairfax.”
In that instance, the workforce also was not eligible for GM’s sub-pay, which is meant to add extra income to unemployment checks in the event of a non-strike related-layoff. But the UAW has been paying those Fairfax employees the regular $500 a week from the strike fund, a UAW spokesman confirmed.
GM employs about 960 people at the Parma Metal Center in Parma, a suburb of Cleveland. It stamps parts for most of GM’s vehicles built in North America including the midsize pickups and cargo vans made at GM’s Wentzville Assembly, the Buick Enclave and Chevrolet Traverse made at Lansing Delta Township and the Cadillac XT4 SUV and the Chevrolet Malibu sedan at Fairfax Assembly.
At the Marion Metal Center, GM employs about 717 people. There, GM stamps parts for a variety of GM vehicles, including those built at Wentzville Assembly.
GM said it has worked to “reduce this negative ripple effect from the strikes by temporarily shifting the impacted team members to other areas of the plant, but the upstream production impact from the strikes has reached a point where there is now no work available for these employees.”
There have been other layoffs brought on by the strikes. Ford laid off an additional 600 employees at Michigan Assembly plant and announced another 330 layoffs Monday related to the expansion of the strike at the Chicago Assembly Plant. Also, Detroit-based seating supplier LM Manufacturing laid off about 650 employees. LM is a joint venture between Canadian auto supplier Magna International Inc. and LAN Manufacturing. It supplies parts for Ford’s Bronco SUV made at the Michigan Assembly Plant. About 293 workers at Michigan auto parts component maker CIE Newcor were expected to be laid off, according to a state filing last month as were 171 employees at Wixom-based parts maker Eagle Industries Inc, according to a state filing.