Strike Threatens To Cripple Gm Walkout At Two Plants May Halt Production Of Popular Vehicles

Production of General Motors’ lucrative pickups and sport utility vehicles could come to a halt by the weekend if strikes at two crucial plants continue, industry analysts said Wednesday.

As negotiations between the United Auto Workers and GM continued in Detroit, workers remained off the job at a truck assembly plant in Janesville, Wis., and a metal stamping plant in Indianapolis.

Janesville is the only U.S. plant that makes the popular Chevrolet and GMC Suburban and the Chevrolet Tahoe and GMC Yukon big, highly profitable sport utilities. Indianapolis makes hoods, roofs and other sheet metal for eight other GM light-truck assembly plants.

The UAW said the walkouts Tuesday were over local plant issues. But there was little doubt the selective strike strategy originated from UAW headquarters in Detroit.

“It’s inseparable from the national negotiations,” said Scott Merlis, an industry consultant. “Clearly, they’re going after the family jewels. Janesville’s one of the most profitable plants in GM’s worldwide system.

“Tactically, it’s exactly what you’d expect. You generally strike where it hurts the most.”

GM said 4,809 workers were off the job in Janesville and 2,750 in Indianapolis. But thousands more workers face layoffs if the strike continues more than a couple of days.

Plants supplied by the Indianapolis factory are in Fort Wayne, Ind.; Linden, N.J.; Moraine, Ohio; Pontiac, Mich.; Shreveport, La.; Oshawa, Ontario; and Flint, Mich. Indianapolis also supplies Janesville.

GM has 23 assembly plants in the United States and Canada. Light trucks, the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. auto industry, comprise 41 percent of its U.S. sales.

The selective strike strategy has another big advantage for the UAW and its 215,000 GM members.

“It’s a lot cheaper,” said analyst Michael Robinet of CSM Forecasting. “When all your plants go on strike, your strike fund gets depleted quite quickly.”

But if GM is forced to shut down other plants as a result of the Indianapolis strike, it is uncertain whether laid-off workers will be eligible for unemployment compensation.

When GM parts workers went on strike in Dayton, Ohio, in March, virtually shutting down GM’s North American production, laid-off workers got unemployment checks. GM challenged the payments but lost.

But this time there is no national GM contract in effect, and union officials fear that might get GM off the hook.

Adding to GM’s woes are the lingering plant slowdowns from the threeweek Canadian Auto Workers strike that ended last week. GM said 22,158 U.S. workers remained laid off Wednesday due to Canadian parts shortages. Car assembly plants in Lordstown, Ohio, and Flint were still idle.

It was unclear how much progress, if any, negotiators were making in Detroit. GM and UAW spokesmen declined to comment, but there were reports that negotiators were not far from a deal.

A key issue is the future of 12 GM parts plants that the company has designated as troubled. GM wants to exclude those plants from the kind of job-security guarantee that the UAW won from Ford and Chrysler.