The recent closing of the General Motors Corp. Broening Highway plant is affecting about 20 Marada Industries employees who agreed to take the week off.

GM notified Marada last month of the closing, which gave the county's non-union company time to ask its 184 workers to sign up for voluntary furlough.

Marada makes the undercarriages for mini-vans that are produced at the Baltimore GM plant, which laid off some 3,000 workers last week.

But the local firm also has other contracts with auto manufacturers so a small portion of workers are laid off at any one time.

The 5-year-old Marada plant also is trying to diversify its product line so that it will not have to rely on a limited number of contracts for the majority of its work, a spokesman said.