General Motors Corp. closed its van assembly plant in Baltimore yesterday to make adjustments for a 10 percent decline in production when the factory reopens Monday.
The closing caused the layoff of the plant's 2,564 hourly workers. Salaried workers will remain on the job.
"We will be down for a week as we do some planning, some number crunching and make changes to the line" in preparation for a lower line speed, said Brian Goebel, a spokesman for the Baltimore plant.
With total employment of 2,783, the Broening Highway plant is the city's largest manufacturing employer. Employment is down from 3,100 last year, due primarily to attrition and retirements.
GM announced in November that it would begin building 45 Chevrolet Astro and GMC Safari vans per hour in mid-March, down from the normal production of 50 units an hour.
Goebel said the move is being made to adjust for declining sales of the two rear-wheel-drive vans.
He said the production of 45 units an hour "is in line with market projections" and output is expected to remain at that level for the foreseeable future.
Goebel said plant officials have not determined if there will be any layoffs next week as a result of the cutback.
Last summer the company reduced the number of vans produced per hour from 53 to 50. That cutback resulted in the layoff of 125 workers. Other companies in the metropolitan area that supply parts to the GM assembly plant, including Monarch Manufacturing Inc. in Belcamp and Marada Industries Inc. in Westminster, are being affected by the shutdown on Broening Highway.
"When GM shuts down, we shut down," said Joe Schriefer, manager of Monarch Manufacturing's Belcamp plant, which produces dashboards and consoles for the Astro and Safari vans.
Schriefer said the plant was forced to lay off its 100 hourly workers as a result of GM's action.
Sales of the Astro totaled 95,977 units last year, down 13.8 percent from the previous year. The Safari suffered a drop of 13.6 percent, to 30,921 units.
The production decline comes as state and city officials are lobbying GM to keep its 64-year-old van plant open.
The plant pumps more than $1 billion a year into the region's economy, economists say, and its future has been in question for several years.
The state's efforts to retain the plant shifted to a higher gear in late July, after new reports of a possible closing.
At that time, GM Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John F. Smith Jr. would only promise Gov. Parris N. Glendening that the Baltimore plant would remain operating for at least two years.
Pub Date: 3/16/99