General Motors Detroit-Hamtramck plant to run 3 shifts for 1st time in 26-year history
Mitch Seaton celebrates the addition of a third shift for the first time in the 26-year history of the General Motors Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant on Wednesday. The automaker will be adding 2,500 new jobs. / Photos by ANDRE J. JACKSON/Detroit Free Press
GM's hiring plans
• Hourly job openings first go to about 1,350 U.S. General Motors workers on layoff. Some GM employees who used to work at Detroit-Hamtramck, but transferred during a past layoff, can return to take one of the new positions.
• In the past, GM has hired new workers through employee referrals. For instance, this winter Detroit-Hamtramck's hourly and salaried workers were each allowed to recommend one person for hiring consideration.
Executives said Detroit-Hamtramck is maintaining that referral pool and will decide after it works out a hiring process with the union whether to solicit people from outside the pool.
• In other words, GM is not currently accepting applications for hourly jobs.
• Salaried positions will be posted at www.gm.com.With the addition of 2,500 jobs, General Motors' Detroit-Hamtramck factory will run three shifts for the first time in its 26-year history.
The plant's 1,100 workers remember when GM cut a second shift in December 2007, then laid off 500 workers a year later because of slow sales of the Cadillac DTS and Buick Lucerne.
Although GM promised to make the Chevrolet Volt at Detroit-Hamtramck, its future was shaky leading up to GM's 2009 bankruptcy.
"It's mind-boggling that we can go from near-extinction to full employment in two years," said Don LaForest, bargaining chairman for UAW Local 22.
Instead of the plant's signature Cadillacs, workers will build three Chevys -- the Volt extended-range electric car, the 2013 Malibu and the next-generation Impala -- as well as the Opel Ampera, the European version of the Volt.
Currently GM is not taking applications. New jobs will first go to laid-off U.S. workers or former Detroit-Hamtramck workers now at other GM factories. Current workers also have referred candidates.
The Detroit-Hamtramck expansion, unveiled Wednesday, accounts for most of GM's eight-state, 4,000-job investment.
As U.S. new-vehicle sales continue to rise, GM plans to fully use active factories before adding production at idle plants, said Mark Reuss, president of GM North America.
"We're a Detroit company, so we're going to look to Detroit first," Reuss said.
2,500 new jobs mark end of Cadillac era at GM Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant
General Motors' addition of 2,500 Detroit-Hamtramck jobs -- to build three new Chevys -- comes at an emotional cost for some current workers: Wednesday was the first day since the factory opened in 1985 that it ran without building a Cadillac.
The Detroit-Hamtramck plant, which GM built specifically for Cadillacs, produced its last Cadillac DTS Tuesday. The factory will build the last Buick Lucerne next week. Workers will continue to build the Volt extended-range electric and add the Malibu next year and the Impala after that, likely by 2013.
"The great history of the Cadillac wreath and crest is important, but our Chevrolet bowtie is where the volume is," said Mark Reuss, president of GM North America.
Still, workers said they feel the new vehicles saved the factory, which is slated to run three shifts soon for the first time in its 26-year history. Ahead of GM's 2009 bankruptcy, the factory dwindled to a skeleton shift to build the aging DTS and Lucerne. With other GM plants slated to close, Detroit-Hamtramck workers feared for their future.
"It was dismal. Everybody was afraid they were going to close it up," Detroit-Hamtramck pipefitter Anthony Kotlarczyk said Wednesday.
Instead, the plant will add a second shift by late this fall, with jobs added gradually over the next several months. A third shift will start at an undisclosed time after that.
To add workers, GM must first recall all its laid-off U.S. workers, expected to occur by September, and offer transfers to some workers who used to work at Detroit-Hamtramck when it ran two shifts.
In addition, Detroit-Hamtramck's 1,100 hourly and salaried workers have each been allowed to refer one job candidate. GM will decide after it works out a hiring process with the union whether it will solicit people from outside the pool. The plant is not accepting applications now.
Any new hires will start at the UAW's second-tier pay, or about $14 an hour. That's roughly half what first-tier workers make.
Still, that pay, along with benefits, would be a raise for Kenyon Reed. One Detroit-Hamtramck worker recommended him for a job at the factory more than three years ago, he said. She put his name in again this winter.
"I've been waiting 3 1/2 years," Reed said. "I'd take that $14 an hour and be happy with it."
Reed said he makes $300 in a good week as a barber in Warren.
GM is adding new workers as it increases Volt production. The automaker raised its intended Volt production last week, to 16,000 for 2011 and 60,000 for 2012. Executives have discussed building as many as 120,000 Volts a year if demand increases with rising gas prices.
"And why wouldn't it?" Reuss said Wednesday. "Here's a vehicle whose owners include people averaging a thousand miles between fill-ups with gasoline. I put three gallons in my own Volt over the last six months."
Detroit-Hamtramck's new jobs, first reported by the Free Press, account for most of the eight-state, 4,000-job investment GM unveiled this month. The automaker also is hiring at plants in Bay City, Flint, Toledo and Bowling Green, Ky. Today GM plans to unveil 110 more jobs for its SUV factory in Arlington, Texas, a person familiar with the planning said.
GM spokeswoman Kim Carpenter declined to give details of the scheduled Arlington announcement.
Source: http://www.freep.com/article/20110526/BUSINESS01/105260471/General-Motors-Detroit-Hamtramck-plant-run-3-shifts-1st-time-26-year-history?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|s
