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General Motors Plans on Reopening a Tennessee Plant

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Chevrolet GMGeneral Motors & Co. (NYSE:GM) said on Monday that it has planned to reopen an assembly plant in Tennessee by next year, which was closed during recession.

The reopening could result in the first fresh hires by the automaker at its Michigan factories since it surfaced from bankruptcy in 2009. About two years ago the automaker closed the Spring Hill plant in Tennessee, resulting in five hundred employees being moved to Michigan when General Motors moved production of Chevrolet Traverse to Delta Township factory.

The automaker had agreed in September to reopen the Spring Hill assembly plant as a part of its labor deal with the United Automobile Workers Union. The plant, which was home of General Motors Saturn Brand, now defunct, was closed in 2009, though an engine plant is still operating at the site.


Nearly 280 of the employees conserved the option of returning to Spring Hill following the reopening by mid next year. Cathy Clegg, labor chief at GM, said on Monday that the automaker will be hiring fresh workers by mid of December, when the company will resume all laid off workers.

General Motors also said that it plans to add another 1.200 jobs at the plant and invest $183 million to manufacture a new midsize vehicle model for the year 2015. GM also plans on adding 1,000 jobs, preferably with fresh hires, at the Detroit Hamtramck by 2012s second half.

Reopening the Spring Hill plant will grant a new life to Saturn, the once innovative brand, which the automaker attempted to establish as a different kind of vehicle venture. The factory in 1990 was reopened with a set of labor rules that encouraged labor management cooperation. GM now plans to run it as an ultra flexible plant to manufacture hot vehicles in short supply.

GM and UAW officials said they are expecting to appoint about 400 to 500 new employees to the plant as part of the first round of jobs. The employees will be paid entry level wages, which will be about $15 per hour, a little more than half compared to full wage workers salary.

John Ashton, a UAW vice president who leads GM’s department, said it was yet undecided as to how many of the Spring Hill jobs would allocated to entry level wage scale as some of the former workers who had been moved previously would undoubtedly want to work at the new plant.

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edliston
Post Written By: Ed Liston

Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing in his yacht.


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Ed Liston

Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing.

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