GM Laying Off 800 Workers at Detroit-Hamtramck Ahead of EV Plant Retooling
Despite the layoffs, GM says that its $3-billion investment plan will bring over 2,000 future jobs to the facility.
General Motors filed documentation with Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity on Tuesday to announce layoffs at its Detroit-Hamtramck facility early next year.
According to the notice posted on the state's Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) website, GM plans to layoff as many as 814 salaried and hourly workers by Feb. 28, 2020. Workers who are released from their position at Hamtramck will be offered positions at other facilities in Michigan and Ohio based on seniority and other stipulations set forth by the United Auto Workers (UAW) union.
This timeline coincides with the previously reported deallocation of the only two vehicles manufactured at the four-million square foot facility, the Cadillac CT6 and Chevrolet Impala. The plant will continue to produce the CT6 until January 2020 and the Impala throughout February; however, once complete it will mark the end of Hamtramck's 35-year run of producing vehicles powered by an internal combustion engine.
"As previously announced, production of the Chevrolet Impala and Cadillac CT6 at Detroit Hamtramck Assembly will be complete in early 2020," a GM spokesperson reportedly told the Detroit Free Press in a statement. "We have job opportunities for all team members covered by the UAW-GM National Agreement. We expect to have opportunities in Michigan and Ohio."
The news comes following the remediation of a six-week strike ushered by the UAW which cost GM and its employees somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.9 billion. As part of the strike's negotiations, GM's Hamtramck plant, which was once slated for closure, will now remain open and serve as GM's gateway to future products.
The Drive previously reported that GM planned to keep the Detroit-Hamtramck plant open by retooling the facility for its upcoming all-electric pickup, a move which is now known to be part of a $3-billion investment that GM says will bring as many as 2,225 direct jobs to the refreshed location.
In conjunction with the retooling of its D-Ham facility, GM also confirmed a new partnership with LG Chem on Thursday. The duo will build a new battery manufacturing facility in Ohio's Mahoning Valley metropolitan area near its idled Lordstown production plant. GM recently sold the old Ohio plant to Lordstown Motors, a non-affiliated startup that plans to build its own electric pickup truck built on Workhorse underpinnings.
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