GM to close Janesville, Wis., plant in December

[FarCenter]

DETROIT - The U.S. automotive sales slump worked its way to Janesville, Wis., Monday when General Motors Corp. told workers that it would cease operations at a sport utility vehicle factory there in December.

GM spokesman Chris Lee said the plant's 1,200 workers represented by the United Auto Workers were told the factory would be shuttered Dec. 23, earlier than GM had expected.

The factory makes the GMC Yukon and the Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban large SUVs, and sales of those vehicles have plummeted with an increase in gasoline prices to around $4 per gallon earlier this year. Gas prices have subsided closer to $3 per gallon nationwide, but that has done little to boost sales.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081013/ap_on_bi_ge/gm_factories;_ylt=AgmehUxrh6rtO6WiixkvZLKyBhIF

[yourout]

1. What a nice christmas present.

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. 80 years of production at that plant and 92 years in that town.

Aug. 21--General Motors' Janesville assembly plant celebrated 80 years of production Wednesday with a ceremony in which plant officials unveiled the Heritage Hall history exhibit.

The history exhibit features a 1923 Chevrolet Superior that employees spent 19 months restoring, as well as historic photographs. The hall is just inside the south entrance of the plant's main building. It is free and open to the public.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5553/is_200308/ai_n21554905


The Tough History of the Plant:

JANESVILLE — From the beginning, General Motors skated on thin ice in Janesville.

Formed through the forced marriage of Samson Tractor of California and Janesville Machine Co., GM’s Samson Tractor Division and 3,000 workers made their first tractor here May 1, 1919.

Samson went belly-up three years later, and GM wanted to leave Janesville. Joseph A. Craig, former general manager of Janesville Machine, convinced GM to stay in Janesville because the city had kept its promises to the corporation and built a new high school, paved streets and constructed houses for workers.

In a sign of things to come for Janesville, GM and the American auto industry, one of the first things GM did to augment Samson Tractor was to move truck production here from Flint, Mich., in 1920.

The tug of war for vehicle production and manufacturing jobs was on.

Since GM’s coming to Janesville, the city has been a microcosm of the U.S. auto industry: corporations formed by gobbling up smaller companies, corporations’ reaping huge profits on the backs of unrepresented workers and the coming of age of organized labor.

Then came a united effort to make guns and bombs to win a world war, big cars and fat profits for decades, the oil price shocks of the 1970s and economic malaise of the ’80s, the responsive but temporary turn to small cars, heightened and honed competition among plants for vehicles and jobs, the tsunami of sport-utility vehicle popularity.

Through it all, Janesville’s GM plant was a survivor—until today and the announcement that GM’s oldest assembly plant will close at the end of 2010, (notice the date!!!) nearly 92 years after it opened.>>>>snip


http://gazettextra.com/news/2008/jun/03/gm-has-long-rich-history-janesville/

[PeaceNikki]

3. :(

Not cool.