Communities edgy as U.S. automakers give plans to feds

DETROIT (AP) — The map tells the story of one Detroit suburb’s dependence on the U.S. automotive industry.

The heart of Warren, Mich., is General Motors Corp.’s one-square-mile Tech Center. To its south is a GM transmission plant. South of that are two Chrysler LLC facilities.

The facilities and overall industry represent 15 percent of Warren’s roughly $100 million fiscal budget. So the town’s Mayor Jim Fouts was on edge Tuesday as GM and Chrysler were preparing to submit restructuring plans to the federal government expected to include factory closures.

Communities such as Warren with major automotive operations are used to feeling tension these days, with the constant drumbeat of plant shutdowns, closures and blue-collar and white-collar layoffs. But they are steeling themselves for more tough blows from the U.S. auto industry, whose sales are at a 26-year low.

Fouts said he doesn’t know how the plan will affect his city. But he says residents overall are feeling “fatigue based on fear.”

“It’s almost overwhelming the amount of bad economic news that my citizens have had to contend with,” he said.

“People are tight right now, hanging in. They’re worried about having to pay their bills and whether their home is going be foreclosed. People are frozen in time right how ... hoping the [federal] rescue will allow them to be thawed out.”

The same wish comes from a GM employee and union official in Shreveport, La., where an assembly plant employs about 800 workers. The plant shut down in December in a cost-cutting move, and now they’re waiting to hear if it is in danger of closing for good.

“Whatever happens, we’ll just have to deal with it,” said Morgan Johnson, president of the United Auto Workers Local 2166, who has worked for GM for 28 years.

“We’re looking forward to the day the economy improves and people start buying cars. We hope and pray that the policies coming out of Washington will help.”

The Shreveport plant, which produces the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon pickup trucks along with the Hummer H3 and H3T, once employed 3,000 hourly workers. About 1,000 jobs were cut last year. The facility is scheduled to reopen Monday.

Richard Bremer, president of the Greater Shreveport Chamber of Commerce, said the plant was the area’s largest manufacturing employer before last year’s job cuts but said the economy is diverse thanks to jobs in the oil and health care industries as well as on a local military base. Losing the plant altogether would deal a sharp blow to the region’s economy, he added.

“Because of the diversity in employment, we’re actually in a little bit better situation than many other parts of the country,” he said.