December 6, 2008 GM to lay off 2,000 more early in 2009 3 plants to be affected; shifts will be removed BY KATIE MERX FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER General Motors Corp. will lay off an additional 2,000 factory workers at three plants early next year, the automaker announced Friday. The move came as GM CEO Rick Wagoner appeared before a U.S. House committee asking Congress for an emergency loan to help the company survive a plummeting auto sales environment. The automaker is temporarily halting production at its car assembly plants in Orion Township; Lordstown, Ohio, and Oshawa, Ontario, for January and will remove a shift from each plant when they resume production in February, GM spokesman Chris Lee said. The automaker also added a week of down time in January at its Fairfax plant in Kansas City, Kan., which produces the Chevrolet Malibu and Saturn Aura. GM is seeking $18 billion in federal loans to help restructure and survive the current downturn. The downturn and global credit crisis are blamed for U.S. auto sales that fell to their lowest rate in more than a quarter century last month. "The tight credit market hit, and now people can't get leases or financing for anything," Lee said. "We are just continuing to adjust as sales are down." Each of the plants affected by Friday's announcement had already been scheduled for slowed production rates and some downtime in January. They will now be down for the entire month. Orion and Lordstown each will resume production with just two shifts Feb. 2. Oshawa Consolidated will resume production with two shifts Feb. 9. When production restarts, Oshawa is to slow from three shifts producing 66 vehicles per hour to two shifts producing 45 vehicles per hour. Lordstown is to slow from three shifts producing 62 vehicles per hour to two shifts producing 46 vehicles per hour. Orion was scheduled to slow its line speed, but with the elimination of one shift, it will now continue to produce 53 cars per hour, but only on two shifts. The shift removals will result in layoffs of an additional 390 people in Orion Township, another 900 in Lordstown and 700 more workers in Oshawa. GM had already announced other layoffs at those plants related to plans to slow the lines. All told, when the plants resume production, they will be with about 4,400 fewer people. In addition, GM added three weeks of downtime starting Jan. 5 at its plant in Kansas City. The plant will resume production with its same two shifts on Jan. 26, but at a slower build rate. GM has announced significant production cuts and plans to close five plants on accelerated schedules in the past few months. With the commitments made in a proposal seeking federal funding from Congress, many say the automaker will announce even deeper cuts and plans to idle more plants over the next several months. Contact KATIE MERX at 313-222-8762 or kmerx@freepress.com.