General Motors Corp. said it will resume production Monday at its assembly plant in Detroit for the first time in a month, after a strike at a key supplier forced it to shut down.
GM spokesman Dan Flores said the automaker has secured enough components to restart the Detroit passenger car plant, and that 1,300 laid-off workers have been called back to help restart production.
“We can resume regular production and we're telling employees report for work at their normal start times,” Flores said.
The plant, which builds the Cadillac DTS and Buick Lucerne, was closed on March 28 due to a parts shortage created by the United Auto Workers strike at supplier American Axle and Manufacturing Holdings Inc.
The American Axle strike forced GM to close more than a dozen assembly plants the United States, Canada and Mexico, and forced the company to lay off workers in several engine, transmission and stamping plants.
On Monday GM managed to resume truck production at a key Canadian plant.
But more strikes at other facilities were being threatened, in actions that would crimp production and hurt GM's bottom line.
UAW locals at GM's Fairfax Assembly Plant in Kansas City and a metal stamping factory in the Grand Rapids suburb of Wyoming had threatened to strike Friday morning. Both have now agreed to give the company 12 hours' notice if they intend to strike, Flores said. The Kansas City plant makes the hot-selling Chevrolet Malibu.
And workers at a metal stamping plant in Mansfield, Ohio, have threatened to strike on Monday.
The American Axle strike began Feb. 26 and so far there is no sign the two sides are getting any closer to a settlement.
Richard Dauch, American Axle chief executive, this week reiterated his threat to move work out of the US, possibly to Mexico or China.
The American Axle strikers responded by staging a protest outside the door of the company's annual share holders meeting in Detroit.
“We don't feel it is fair for executives to receive enormous bonuses while workers are being asked to cut their wages and benefits,” said an email message circulated by strikers before the demonstration.
