Updated-News-Journal: Boxwood GM Plant to Close
UPDATE: Governor Jack Markell has released the following statement about the GM closing:
WILMINGTON — Gov. Jack Markell released the following statement Monday in response to General Motors’ decision to close its Boxwood Road plant. Since taking office in January, Markell has worked with U.S. Sen. Tom Carper, U.S. Sen. Ted Kaufman and U.S. Rep. Mike Castle to be in frequent contact with GM officials. The Governor also recently met with President Obama’s car czar and told the company the state would be willing to offer assistance if GM would idle the plant instead of closing the facility.
“The employees at the Boxwood Road plant worked hard every day and deserved a chance to help General Motors regroup and move forward,” Markell said. “GM has sent many strong signals in the past few years that it was leaning toward closing this plant, but that does not make this news any less unfortunate or soften its impact on the workers and their families.
“We stand ready to help the plant’s talented employees learn new skills so they can be competitive in the job market. The Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Social Services will be deploying teams to help the workers get the necessary training and assistance. The workers at the GM plant gave some of the most productive years of their lives to the company and helped GM be an important part of Delaware’s economy in the past. We owe it to these workers to help them become part of Delaware’s economic future.”
El Somnambulo hopes that GM and Chrysler workers, as well as other laid-off or unemployed manufacturing sector workers, have the first crack at the green energy jobs that Delaware is trying to develop. In that context, he hopes that both DEDO and DNREC will join with the Departments of Labor and Health & Social Services in developing state-of-the art training for those workers.
Back to the original post:
Horrible news. GM has announced that it will shutter the Boxwood GM plant. The News-Journal has the entire story.
Everyone must know that the workforce at the Boxwood plant has consistently been one of the best in the country, based on quality control measures. While there are logistical reasons why the closing makes sense, i. e. distance from the midwest suppliers and the dire financial straits GM finds itself in, this is a tragedy for the 1000-plus employees, their families, all of the businesses that depend on the GM workforce, and to the state as a whole. Our manufacturing base is now close to being decimated.
El Somnambulo extends his sympathies to all those who are affected, and he salutes the brothers and sisters of UAW Local 435 for performing at such a high level over such a long period of time. The men and women on the line succeeded against all odds, it was the corporate empty suits in Detroit who failed them.
Tags: State Economy
Well put. GM executives, like other American car company executives made wrong choice after wrong choice.
For example GM bought Hummer in 1999 and in 2005 rolled out the worst selling mass market vehicle EVER, the 2005 Hummer H1 SUV.
374 total units sold.
And GM was aided and abetted by John Dingell and his ilk by enabling GM to put its head in the sand and ignore any consideration of building fuel-efficient vehicles until it was too late.
The Newark Chrysler plant won many awards as well, while it was still operational.
Sad stuff.
This is such sad news.Since 1981,I have worked at both plants.I helped construct both state-of-the-art paint plants and on various shut-downs and re-toolings.The skilled trades are really going to miss those jobs.I bought my house with the money I made when Chrysler re-tooled for the Durango.I’m going to have a cry now.Pity is the tenderest of affections.
Michael Moore sums it up pretty succinctly:
“Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars? History will record this blunder in the same way it now writes about the French building the Maginot Line or how the Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water system with lethal lead in its pipes.”
The GM workers are definitely victims of the terrible mismanagement by GM leadership.
I’m very sorry to hear of the plant closing. It’s terrible when so many people lose their jobs.
Unstable Isotope
“The GM workers are definitely victims of the terrible mismanagement by GM leadership.”
So you give Bush a free pass?
The Chevy Volt would have been ideal for Boxwood but Markell was too busy kiss Rodel’s ass when he should have been selling Delaware to GM.
Bush doesn’t get a free pass for his terrible mismanagement of the economy but GM’s troubles have been in the works much longer than that.
Was the plant a model of productivity or were ‘work rules’ (aka featherbedding) applied to an extreme degree?
The plant seems to have turned out a nice product. Perhaps Government Motors can set them up to produce a domestic version of the Trabant.
Volt.. pfft.
I love the idea of hybrids and high fuel efficiency vehicles, and I am not excited by the Volt.
The name and brand General Motors is on a slow devolution to non existence.
Give it 10 years and GM will not be a stand alone corporation.
Mike Protack
I am more optimistic if GM doesn’t keep thinking that it can cut itself into prosperity as a long run strategy. The fall in car demand is a function of the credit market more than anything else. That is not a long term problem. GM has long term issues which are being both addressed and side stepped depending upon the issue.
I am sorry to see the lives of the workers upset as well.
Function of the credit market? What?!?
Going off of the top of my head here, I succinctly remember the entire industry struggling to stay alive 6 or 7 years ago by introducing the 0% financing purchase… flooding the market with hundreds of thousands, if not million of new vehicles.
SUV’s were flying off of the lots in record numbers as, like the housing market, millions of cars were loaned to people with payments they could barely afford.
The manufacturers did not realize that the demand would eventually drop due to everyone, collectively, tightening their belts as gas prices skyrocketed and left them all with nothing but gas guzzling vehicles that ended up being the equivalent of a luxury Winnebago.
Not one American manufacturer had a family sedan that could run under 30 MPG, not one. I know because I was looking specifically for a high gas mileage family, American made vehicle in late 2003, and I ended up with a Saturn Ion which averaged 28-30 tops.
So, when demand dramatically shifted the American manufacturers were only left with base model entry level small cars which didn’t appeal to the flashy SUV drivers.
Meanwhile Honda had a respectable looking Civic, and the increasingly popular Prius. Toyota and Kia even had family sedans that looked halfway decent that were more affordable… and they had it because they made smart decisions and kept their line of vehicles diversified.
DIVERSIFIED!
Not like Chrysler, who depended on Dodge trucks to pay their bills. Not like GM that STILL doesn’t have a hybrid that can compete NINE YEARS after the Prius was introduced… instead pushing its Saturn division, which didn’t have an SUV in the market until the midsize SUV market was damn near deflated… which could have easily transformed one of their two sedan lines into a hybrid model instead of consolidating them into one line.
Oh yeah, GM had hybrids that were the equivalent of taking an 8 cylinder and making it a 6 cylinder, maybe.. MAYBE adding 4 MPG compared to their other models. Oh, and were those hybrids in their sedans? NO! in their SUV’s.
At least Ford was smart enough to take Mazda’s hybrid technology and make their hybrid vehicles halfway decent.
Fall in demand was because of the credit markets… HA! The demand was directly linked to the price of gas. Directly liked to the astronomical rise due to Hurricaine Katrina, where gas first broke the $3 barrier, and then the rise last year when it finally broke the $4 barrier to put political pressure on Congress to allow offshore drilling.
Drill baby, drill.
As soon as that was passed, gas dropped back down to the $3 range, then the $2 range when the economy tanked.
Bad decisions, a fumbling and unresponsive executive management, and an economy hijacked by Big Oil fucked GM and Chrysler.. not the credit markets. Ford was only saved because of convenient loan timing and only a few less bad decisions.
Blinded greed fucked GM and Chrysler. They became reactionary instead of proactive in their business model. They bet the farm on what was popular, and eventually they lost that bet because they refused to play a different game.
awaiting moderation, probably because i swore more than once or something… or was too long winded.