Southern autoworkers worried

Foreign-owned auto plants could be impacted by a collapse of GM.

SMYRNA, Tenn. (AP) — The foreign automakers that have chosen the South for their U.S. operations may have a lot to gain in the long run if the Detroit Three fail and give up their market share to companies such as Toyota, Honda and Volks-wagen. Brenda Huddleston doesn’t want to take her chances.

“If they go under I don’t know what’s in store for us,” said the 41-year-old employee at Nissan Motor Co.’s Smyrna assembly plant. “Everybody at Nissan is scared.”

General Motors Corp. has said it could go out of business within weeks if it doesn’t get its share of the $34 billion in government loans U.S. automakers are seeking. Its collapse would likely drag down suppliers that also do business with other automakers, potentially halting production of Toyota Camrys and Nissan Altimas across the South and Midwest just as it would shut down Buick and Cadillac assembly lines in Detroit. Honda operates plants in Ohio.

“There isn’t a supplier that doesn’t touch GM in some way,” said Erich Merkle, auto analyst with the consulting firm Crowe Horwath LLP. GM’s demise would “shut down all of North American vehicle production for a period of time. It could even shut down other industries,” he said. “You cannot let them [GM] collapse.”

Nissan’s Smyrna plant may be nearly 500 miles from Detroit, but the concerns that seem centered on the Motor City still send shivers through the ranks of nonunion autoworkers elsewhere.

“I feel sorry for any worker who might lose their job,” said Huddleston, who has worked at the plant about 40 miles east of Nashville for 14 years. She said the government should provide whatever is needed to protect jobs at GM, Ford and Chrysler “if they come up with a presentable plan.”

Lawmakers from Southern states have been among those who have taken a hard line against providing aid, but they may not realize the repercussions for the automakers in their states, Merkle said.

“If you want to cut the head off the United Auto Workers or throw them off the bridge that’s fine, but don’t be handcuffed to them,” he said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has said he thinks the Detroit automakers are doomed to fail, and Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the Banking Committee that has grilled the automakers’ CEOs twice, has said he has little faith that the companies won’t be back asking for more money later.

BMW employs about 5,400 people in South Carolina, while Shelby’s state is home to Honda, Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai Motor Co. plants.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., has said he was “disappointed” with the interim rescue plan that began emerging over the weekend because it did not require major union givebacks or debt restructuring moves, but said even companies such as Volkswagen, Nissan and Toyota “want to ensure that there’s a healthy auto industry.”

For decades, state and local governments in the South have waved taxpayer subsidized deals at European and Asian auto executives in return for jobs, most recently $577.4 million in incentives bringing Volkswagen’s first U.S. factory to Tennessee.