Small-car plant a big relief
By Kathy Barks Hoffman and David Goodman
Associated Press
ORION TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Michigan has snatched back a few of its fast-disappearing auto jobs, winning a high-stakes competition with two other states to build General Motors Corp.'s next-generation subcompact car.
The news is a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy Michigan economy that has seen unemployment hit a nation-leading 14.1 percent and uncertainty for thousands of others worried about whether they'll still be getting a paycheck in the months ahead.
"We're delighted," Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson said yesterday after a person briefed on the decision told The Associated Press that GM would keep 1,200 jobs at the retooled midsize car factory in Orion Township about 40 miles north of Detroit. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan has not been made public.
GM spokeswoman Sherrie Childers Arb would not comment on whether GM had made a decision.
Tony Medrano, an hourly employee at the Orion Township plant, called it "awesome news." The Orion plant now makes the Pontiac G6 and Chevrolet Malibu midsize cars, but the Pontiac brand is being discontinued and the Malibu also is made at a factory in Kansas City, Kan. The plant was to go on standby status later this year.
Medrano, who has worked for GM for eight years, was one of the plant workers who accompanied Democratic Michigan Rep. Gary Peters to GM's headquarters last week to deliver letters to company officials pressing for bringing small-car production to the factory.
He's unsure about the future of his job because it's unclear if the plant will need the same amount of workers as it has now. But he said he still wanted Orion Township to get the chance to build the 160,000 small cars annually.
Auto workers weren't the only ones heartened by the news. Ron Basar, a 44-year-old engineer with the auto parts supplier Inteva Products, said landing the small car was "quite a relief."
His company faced shutting at least one of its plants had the Orion Township plant closed, and the township would have suffered a big blow to its finances.
