GM to Keep Louisiana Midsize Pickup Plant Open Until August

05.02.12

(Updates with ration price in final paragraph.)

Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Global Motors Co. will keep open until August 2012 the midsize pickup station in Louisiana that it set for closure as part of a new four-year labor contract.

The Shreveport, Louisiana, mill making Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon trucks will close Aug. 23, Kim Carpenter, a spokeswoman for Detroit-based GM, wrote in an e- despatch today. The closure date is dependent on pickup orders by dealers and customers, she said. Shreveport is the only putting together plant that the automaker and United Auto Workers certainly would shut as part of their contract ratified Sept. 28.

GM confirmed it will carry on selling the Colorado pickup, which is smaller than its Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra trucks, in an Oct. 10 asseveration. The UAW has said the company agreed to build midsize trucks in its Wentzville, Missouri, mill that makes full-size vans.

The UAW planned to continue pushing GM to delay the closure of Shreveport and find stamping or other work outside of assembling vehicles, said Joe Ashton, the marriage’s vice president for GM relations.

“That’s unquestionably the saddest part of this whole set of negotiations, to see any plant close,” Ashton told reporters at a Sept. 20 give instructions in Detroit.

GM agreed to keep its plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, on standby as part of the promise, according to the UAW. The accord ratified by 48,500 members calls for GM to spend $2.5 billion through four years, reopen a factory in Shoot up Hill, Tennessee, and add or retain jobs at six other plants.

GM will add a transpose at the Wentzville van factory for midsize trucks and boost yield in Michigan at two powertrain plants and a casting factory, the fellowship said. GM also committed to continue building trucks in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where workers pocket Silverado and Sierra pickups.

GM rose 0.5 percent to $26.45 at the intimate in New York.

--Editors: Bill Koenig, John Lear

To write to the reporter on this story: Craig Trudell in Southfield, Michigan, at ctrudell1@bloomberg.net

To in the editor responsible for this story: Jamie Butters at jbutters@bloomberg.net

Source: BusinessWeek