Poletown's Second Shift Gets The Shaft

by Frank Williams

Published: October 17th, 2007

Just a few weeks after making a deal with the UAW to guarantee work at specific plants, GM is cutting one shift and laying off 767 workers at their Poletown assembly plant in Hamtramck, Michigan. It didn't take GM long to find the loophole in the agreement: the deal guarantees future work but doesn't say how many workers they'll use or how many shifts they'll run, either now or in the future. Currently the plant builds the Buick Lucerne and Cadillac DTS. In September, Buick averaged six sales per dealer while Caddy floggers averaged 14; so they don't need a lot of production capacity. The "future models" slated for Poletown include a new midsize Chevy sedan (isn't that what the Malibu is supposed to be?), a seven-passenger CUV (another one– just what GM needs) and the Chevy Volt (yeah, right… whenever). The laid-off workers can be used to fill other positions within GM as needed, according to the Detroit News.