The soft economy has affected just about everything we do and have now a days. GM, where I work, is no different. If anything I would say that it has hit GM hardware than most. Last quarter the paper said GM had a loss of 15.5 Billion dollars. Well we have effectively reduced our build rate and personnel down 20%. We use to build 340 cars at the Cadillac plant, a.k.a. LGR, in a 10 hour shift. We are now building about 150 cars now in a 10 hour shift. I know that is more then 20%, but we are looking at building 270 after the re-rate is finished. We simply don’t need the cars right now. All the new-hires from 2008 will be let go in the middle of November from the best guess I have heard. We are also going to have 3 weeks off for Christmas.
The rumor going around right now is that LGR will be going to one shift the first of the year. Nothing official has been said. The other rumor going around is That GM is going to acquire Chrysler. They say that they are going to terminate all but the Jeep and the Caravan. This acquisition is for their money, 12 million in liquid assets and also for the fact that they have 2 electric cars. GM has 1 electric car and that would mean GM would now have 3, a leader in the marketplace in this aspect. One opinion is that if they let go of the other vehicles that it would eliminate some of the competition. This is all hearsay and conjecture at this point, but we will know soon enough.
Some people ask if I am worried about my job getting cut, and as it looks right now, things look pretty good. If I were laid off I have to go time for time. That means I have to be laid off for as long as I have worked for GM, which happens to be 6 years now.
The SRX and STS are rumored to be cut for our line in 2009 or 2010 from what I understand, but we are picking up 2 more cars, the CTS Coupe (2 door) and the CTS Wagon. The only other car that we build is the CTS and the CTS-V (corvette engine).
Time will tell all
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