Gm Plant

ARLINGTON, Texas — Every day at the General Motors Co. assembly plant, harried workers pull 15 of their freshly built sport utility vehicles off the line and climb all over them. It's not meant to be fun. They check the big vehicles high and low for fit and finish, squeaks and rattles, air and water leaks, and other problems — and typically find few flaws, despite the plant's frantic pace since January. But as surviving domestic auto plants here and elsewhere continue to stretch their production capacities with month after month of 50-hour weeks, they may test the limits of their quality-control systems.

A few days before Thanksgiving, hundreds of people from around the country jammed into the idled General Motors Co. plant here, cheering as company and union officials pushed a big red button signifying the reopening of the car-assembly factory. The ceremony marked a rare bright moment for workers in America's long-beleaguered auto industry. But there's a catch: Under its agreement with the United Auto Workers union, GM will be hiring mostly new workers for the plant who will start at $15.78 an hour, about half the prevailing rate paid to the company's production employees.

A few days before Thanksgiving, hundreds of people from around the country jammed into the idled General Motors Co. plant here, cheering as company and union officials pushed a big red button signifying the reopening of the car-assembly factory. The ceremony marked a rare bright moment for workers in America's long-beleaguered auto industry. But there's a catch: Under its agreement with the United Auto Workers union, GM will be hiring mostly new workers for the plant who will start at $15.78 an hour, about half the prevailing rate paid to the company's production employees.

In two stops at Michigan auto plants — one including a rare test-drive — President Obama declared the federal rescue of domestic automakers a success Friday, delivering a message to "naysayers" who have criticized a robust government role. "A lot of folks were skeptical," Obama said, noting that he also preferred government not to be in the auto business. "But I believed that if each of us were willing to work and sacrifice in the short term — workers, management, creditors, shareholders, retirees, communities — it could mark a new beginning for a great American industry."

General Motors' decision to postpone development of its next-generation Chevrolet Camaros and Pontiac Firebirds may extend the life of the models made at its Van Nuys plant, company officials said Monday. The company had intended to replace existing models with front-wheel-drive, plastic-skinned cars in 1989. GM officials said Friday, however, that the new models won't be produced until at least 1993, opening the possibility of producing current lines in the next decade.

Up near the corner of Van Nuys Boulevard and Blythe Street, near the old headquarters of United Auto Workers Local 645, are a pair of murals that say much about recent history here. The first, painted to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the United Auto Workers, is a vibrantly colorful testament to optimism and faith. The center is dominated by the artist's vision of things to come, of futuristic autos on a futuristic freeway.

General Motors said it will close two plants in Detroit today, idling 6,000 workers. It also began cutting thousands of workers' hours at other plants because of parts shortages stemming from the strike at Delco Electronics' Kokomo, Ind., facility. If the strike continues, GM's Van Nuys plant could be closed next week, company officials said.

A 4,000-gallon storage tank containing paint thinner exploded outside the General Motors assembly plant in Van Nuys Monday, hurling the top of the tank onto a roof at the plant but injuring no one, authorities said. The 7:30 a.m. blast at 7500 N. Tyrone Ave. ignited a small fire that was quickly extinguished by GM plant firefighters, said Greg Acevedo, spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department. The cause of the explosion was not known Monday but was believed to be accidental.

A proposal to rescue jobs by retrofitting the huge General Motors auto plant in Van Nuys to manufacture mass-transit rail cars or buses should be explored, the Los Angeles City Council's Community and Economic Development Committee agreed Wednesday.

When it comes to a healthy California economy and the preservation of manufacturing jobs, our politicians are a day late and a dollar short. Typical is the sobbing and whimpering of Assemblyman Richard Katz over the closure of the General Motors Van Nuys plant, scheduled in 1992. Where was Katz in 1989, when GM was looking for help and direction as it planned its facility usage in a changing market? County Supervisor Mike Antonovich made contacts with GM's Detroit leaders, and received tentative commitments to look at electric car production as a possibility.

ARLINGTON, Texas — Every day at the General Motors Co. assembly plant, harried workers pull 15 of their freshly built sport utility vehicles off the line and climb all over them. It's not meant to be fun. They check the big vehicles high and low for fit and finish, squeaks and rattles, air and water leaks, and other problems — and typically find few flaws, despite the plant's frantic pace since January. But as surviving domestic auto plants here and elsewhere continue to stretch their production capacities with month after month of 50-hour weeks, they may test the limits of their quality-control systems.

Documentary short "Music by Prudence" Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett In a category some might be surprised to still see on the broadcast in a year of 10 best picture nominees, the Oscar for documentary short subject went to "Music by Prudence," made by Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett, the story of a band of disabled musicians in Zimbabwe. Williams made it to the stage first and had begun speaking when Burkett stepped to the microphone and excitedly began to talk over Williams, saying, "In a world in which most of us are told, and tell ourselves, that we can't, we honor the band behind this film who teaches us that we're wrong.

Luxury automaker Fisker Automotive Inc. of Irvine has agreed to buy a closed General Motors assembly plant in Delaware to produce plug-in hybrid electric cars, the company said. Fisker has signed a letter of intent with Motors Liquidation Co., formerly known as General Motors Corp., to buy the Wilmington, Del., plant for $18 million.

The White House is expected to announce this week that an Irvine automaker will be setting up shop in a recently idled General Motors plant in Vice President Joe Biden's home state of Delaware. A source in the vice president's office said Sunday that Biden would be making an announcement at the closed plant on Tuesday but would not provide further details. The Associated Press reported that Fisker Automotive Inc. of Irvine intended to revamp a Delaware factory for use to produce one of its two electric plug-in hybrid vehicles.

Toyota Motor Corp.'s decision to abandon its assembly line in Fremont marks the end of large-scale auto manufacturing in California, which over the years boasted a dozen or more plants building vehicles ranging from Studebakers to Camaro muscle cars. The Japanese automaker said Thursday that it would end production at the plant March 31, throwing 4,700 people out of work, and return some production to Japan. It's another hard blow for California, a state already grappling with an 11.9% unemployment rate -- its highest since World War II and the fourth-worst in the nation.

America's auto crisis has stretched beyond the Midwest all the way to California. The state's last automobile plant is facing potential closure after General Motors Corp. said Monday that it would drop out of the joint venture with Toyota Motor Corp. that operates the factory and builds three vehicles there. The troubled automaker will produce its final Pontiac Vibe at New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., or NUMMI, by the end of August.

More than 11,000 hourly workers at General Motors Corp.'s Buick City auto and parts complex walked off the job Tuesday, threatening to bring GM's vast automotive empire screeching to a halt. The strike, the second GM walkout in a month, forced the auto maker to halt production of the Oldsmobile 88, Buick LeSabre and Buick Park Avenue cars and also several key components used in dozens of other GM vehicles.

Four years after the bulldozers swept away much of Poletown, the furious residents are long gone, the prayer vigils and the protests are over and the Cadillac, Buick and Oldsmobile luxury cars are finally starting to roll off the assembly line.

A strike Monday by a United Auto Workers union local at the General Motors Corp. plant in Fairfax, Kan., could endanger production of the popular Chevrolet Malibu sedan, adding to mounting problems for the automaker. Employees at the plant set up pickets in medians and at the gates and vowed to stay out for as long as necessary to get a contract.

Some workers brought cameras to General Motors Corp.'s Oklahoma City plant to take photographs of their workstations and co-workers before the last vehicle rolled off the line Monday. Others just brought their sadness. "It's a rough day," said GM spokeswoman Nancy Sarpolis in Detroit. "It's hard to see your co-workers go."