GM halts pickup production at 2 plants

It also ends some overtime shifts as it grapples with semiconductor chips shortage

For the first time this year General Motors will halt production of its full-size pickups at two U.S. plants.

GM said it is canceling overtime shifts this weekend at its assembly plants in Flint, Mich., and Fort Wayne Ind.

Also, there will be no summer shutdown this year at the majority of GM’s U.S. plants.

The automaker said it will run the majority of its car assembly plants in North America through the traditional two-week summer shutdown for the second year in a row.

GM hopes that it can recoup production losses over the summer brought on by the global shortage of semiconductor chips and winter storm disruptions at assembly plants this year.

GM spokesman David Barnas said the semiconductor shortage — brought on by increased demand during the pandemic for personal electronics that use the chips as well as various car parts that use them — is fluid.

“As we continue to manage the semiconductor impact on our plants, we are balancing parts availability with our ability to run efficiently for the entire week,” Barnas said in an email. “With that, we have made relatively minor weekend production adjustments.”

Early Friday afternoon, hourly workers at Flint knew “there was an issue brewing” with a supplier of parts that use the chips, UAW Local 598 chairman Eric Welter told the Free Press.

By midafternoon it was confirmed that GM was canceling the weekend overtime shifts because of a parts shortage, Welter said.

“The chip problem is a huge industrywide problem, not just with GM,” Welter said. “It is going to impact everybody’s bottom line in the end.”

GM canceled overtime production at Flint starting with the third shift Friday evening. All overtime shifts today and Sunday are canceled too, Barnas confirmed.

GM builds its Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra heavy-duty full-size pickups at Flint.

“We’re going to take the weekend off and hope we’ll run stable next week,” Welter said. “There are about 1,100 people on a shift who won’t get overtime pay, but most are happy to have a weekend off because we work all the time.”

GM also canceled all three shifts today at its Fort Wayne Assembly plant in Indiana because of the chips shortage, UAW Local 2209 shop chairman Rich LeTourneau told the Free Press.

GM confirmed that scheduled overtime production at Fort Wayne for today was canceled. The company builds its light-duty Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra full-size pickups at Fort Wayne. It also makes them at its Silao assembly plant in Mexico, which will run normally, Barnas said.

LeTourneau said it is the first time production has been canceled at Fort Wayne because of a chip-related problem. GM did halt production there in February during the severe winter storms.

It is also the first disruption to pickup production at Flint so far this year, Welter said.

“They’ve done a great job at keeping us up and running, and my expectation is it’s just this weekend,” Welter said. “I’m sure it’ll be hand-to-mouth, but there’s no expectation this will lead to any more downtime for us. We’ve been a priority for all the parts.”

While having a weekend off is nice, it’s also added pressure, Welter said. So far, Flint’s monthly-build rate has been ahead of GM’s schedule. At Flint, about 1,050 pickups are built each day, Welter said.

“We’re overbuilding capacity of the plant and even that is not keeping up with the demand our customers want,” Welter said. “We’re just keeping our head above water on this. Customers like this truck, so we just keep going.”