2 GM factories in danger of closure

A stamping plant and engine plant could be closed by GM.

DETROIT (AP) — The tentative contract between General Motors Corp. and the United Auto Workers would allow GM to close a plant each in Michigan and Indiana and possibly shut down several other facilities, according to a detailed copy of the agreement.

The moves are the downside of job security pledges that the UAW won in the negotiations, including commitments for new products at 16 plants. About 74,000 hourly GM workers will vote on the pact starting this week, with a final tally to be done by Oct. 10.

Gregg Shotwell, a GM worker and frequent critic of the UAW, posted most of the contract details on the Internet. He said he received the agreement from a local union official who attended a Friday meeting in Detroit. He would not identify the official, but the accuracy of its contents was confirmed for The Associated Press by a union leader who requested anonymity because members have not yet voted on the pact.

‘White book’

The agreement would let GM sell or close a stamping plant in Indianapolis and close an engine plant in Livonia, in suburban Detroit. According to the detailed document, called the “white book,” work at the Indianapolis stamping operation will continue or be reallocated to another GM plant “until such time as the plant can be sold to an outside buyer.”

GM will study keeping the plant, but if it is not sold or kept, it will be closed “no sooner than December 2011,” the document said. It employs about 850 workers, according to a GM Web site.

The Livonia plant, which now employs about 300, would remain open through its current product life cycle, which ends in 2010.

“The national parties will jointly explore opportunities for current Livonia seniority employees,” the document said.

A stamping plant in Flint and a small powertrain operation in Parma, Ohio, also may be in jeopardy, according to the document. For the Flint plant, under the heading “Product Opportunities,” the document says only that the UAW and GM will explore opportunities for current Flint employees.

No allocation

The document says no future powertrain products will be allocated to Parma, which also has a stamping operation that will continue with new generation products.

The Flint North engine plant will gain a new facility under the agreement. The document says GM will build three “lean, agile flex engine modules” at a new site near the plant. The new plant could build as many as 1,200 four- and six-cylinder engines per day.

Under the agreement, GM at present has no future product for the Orion Township assembly plant in Michigan, which now makes the Pontiac G6, beyond 2013. But it says both parties will evaluate opportunities for future products. And the document says GM plans to transfer the Saturn Sky and Pontiac Solstice roadster production from Wilmington, Del., to Bowling Green, Ky., after 2011.

“No future product allocation has been identified beyond the life of the current agreement,” the document says of Wilmington.