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Corvette Bowling Green plant to share production w/Solstice/Sky production in 2012
Wilmington automobile plant could be idled in five years
By RANDALL CHASE,AP
Posted: 2007-09-28 19:30:44
DOVER, Del. (AP) - A tentative contract agreement between General Motors Corp. and the United Auto Workers calls for production of the Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky to continue in Wilmington until 2012, but does not provide for vehicle production in Delaware after that date, according to the UAW.
Wilmington's Boxwood Road facility is one of two GM plants not slated for production of new vehicles, according to a summary of the agreement provided by the UAW. The other is the Orion Township plant in Michigan, which will make the Pontiac G6 until 2013.
Eldon Renaud, head of UAW Local 2164 in Bowling Green, Ky., said the contract proposal calls for production of the Solstice, Sky and Opel roadsters to shift from Delaware to Kentucky, creating up to 2,000 jobs there.
The UAW summary notes that production of the Corvette and Cadillac XLR will continue in Bowling Green until 2011, with production of replacement vehicles starting in 2012.
"We've been trying to get additional products at the plant," Renaud told The Associated Press. "I'm just excited."
A halt to production at the Boxwood Road plant, which employs about 1,500 people, would be a serious blow to Delaware's automotive industry. DaimlerChrysler announced earlier this year that it would lay off hundreds of workers at its Newark assembly plant and idle that facility in 2009.
Nevertheless, state economic development director Judy McKinney-Cherry said she was not worried.
"I think we have one of the best work forces in the country, and I'll put it up against Kentucky's work force any day," she said. "So concerned? No."
Spokeswomen for Gov. Ruth Ann Minner did not immediately return messages left on their cell phones Friday evening. Minner spokeswoman Kate Bailey said in an e-mail that the governor's office was unaware of plans by GM to shift production to Kentucky.
McKinney-Cherry said that Terry Deputy, leader of the Delaware Economic Development Office's automotive cluster, had spoken with Boxwood Road plant manager Robert Dolan and was told that talk of production shifting to Kentucky was "speculation."
"Certainly, all the indications that we have would not support this rumor," she said. "... The lines of communication are so open that I would just be really surprised."
The fact that the current production contract at Boxwood Road lasts through 2012 is "actually a positive for us," McKinney-Cherry added.
"This plant is in good stead, and will not be closed, will not be idled during the life of this contract," she said.
The Boxwood Road plant, which has about 1,400 hourly workers and 160 salaried employees, produced 23,679 Solstices last year, along with 10,503 copies of the Saturn Sky 261 Opel Roadsters.
Dolan, the plant manager, and David Myers, president of UAW Local 435, did not immediately return phone calls Friday evening.
James Wolfe, president of the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce and a former manager of the Newark Chrysler plant, was not immediately available for comment.
When DaimlerChrysler announced the fate of the Newark plant in February, members of Delaware's congressional delegation held out hope that the company would decide to build a new product there rather than idle the plant.
U.S. Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., noted at that time that GM had announced in 1992 that it was going to close the Boxwood Road assembly plant, but instead decided to keep it open and had "three shifts working 24-7."
Efforts to reach Carper for comment Friday were not immediately successful.
Associated Press Writers Dee-Ann Durbin and Tom Krisher in Detroit and Brett Barrouquere in Louisville, Ky., contributed to this report.
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