GM to close Mansfield plant Jan. 29

About 550 employees at the facility will be affected.

BY TERI BERG

CentralOhio.com

MANSFIELD — The last day of production at the Mansfield General Motors plant is Jan. 29, a company spokesman said Friday.

“There could be an extension of a few days to complete an order or wrap up production, but right now we’re looking at that Friday as the last day of production,” said Tom Mock, communications manager for the GM Lordstown, Mansfield and Parma facilities.

Some 420 hourly and salaried staff members and about 130 temporary workers at the Mansfield/Ontario Metal Center stamping plant on West Fourth Street were informed Wednesday of the impending shutdown.

Additionally, GM officials put in calls Wednesday to Mansfield and Ontario mayors Don Culliver and Ken Bender and Gov. Ted Strickland to announce the final date for production in Ontario, Mock said. The company, he said, also filed Worker Adjustment Retraining Notification paperwork with the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.

Mock said that affected employees will be eligible for state unemployment benefits. He said a few workers would be retained and shifted to whatever operations and maintenance needed to be attended to until the plant’s expected closure in June 2010.

GM announced in May it would shutter the plant, open since 1955, as it headed into federal bankruptcy court. Since then roughly 600 Ontario plant workers retired or took buyouts, and another 100 or so accepted transfers to other General Motors facilities.

“There are a lot of good people there who have served GM well for a lot of years,” Mock said.