Spring Hill closure will have local impact

Walt Wood, CEO of Shelbyville & Bedford County Chamber of Commerce, did not have a figure for the number of GM employees living in Bedford County, even after checking with state officials.

"I would say there's several," said Wood, especially in the Unionville area.

GM announced Monday that the Spring Hill assembly plant will be idled and production of its Chevrolet Traverse relocated to Lansing, Mich. The company, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, also announced nine plants will permanently close.

But with the Spring Hill plant on standby, workers and United Auto Workers officials held out hope it could still have a future building vehicles for the largest U.S. automaker.

When GM opened the plant, it primarily relocated workers here from other areas, such as laid-off workers from its existing plants. So the local impact of what was originally known as the Saturn plant was more from GM employees settling in this area than from natives getting work at Saturn.

Wood also said some local auto parts suppliers have worked with Saturn in the past.

'Very disappointed'

State Sen. Jim Tracy and State Rep. Curt Cobb both expressed disappointment with the closure but were hopeful it would not last long.

"I'm very disappointed by the decision the GM officials, and the administration, have made to put the GM plant ... on hold," Tracy told the Times-Gazette. "I'm very saddened by the effect it's going to have on many families in Tennessee. I am glad that 600 Tennesseans will remain employed."

"I really hate this for the families and the people that are being affected by this," said Cobb. "I certainly hope that the Spring Hill plant will be a contender for a contract for another automobile in the fall."

"We feel like there's a good possibility" that the plant will re-open, said Tracy. "They just spent quite a bit of dollars to refurbish the whole plant. Hopefully GM, or someone, will take that plant and build cars."

Cobb stayed home from work to watch the press conference at which GM officials discussed the firm's bankruptcy.

Tracy said he was concerned about the impact on parts suppliers and other plants feeding in to the GM system.

Corker comments

U.S. Sen. Bob Corker issued this statement: "I've spent the past 24 hours on the phone with GM officials, the auto task force, Governor Bredesen, and the local mayors and economic development officials.

"I'm obviously very disappointed in the decision by GM officials and the administration to idle our Spring Hill plant but glad it's idled for a period and not closed and certainly happy for the 600 Tennesseans that will remain employed. I'm saddened by the effect this will have on the many families who derive their incomes directly from the Spring Hill plant as well as the suppliers and vendors who depend on it.

"Tennessee is one of the best places in America to build cars, and Spring Hill is one of the most modern, adaptable plants in the country, so we remain hopeful that Spring Hill might be chosen to house GM's new subcompact facility or will move back into production if the economy improves. At the same time, we will continue working with Governor Bredesen and the local community to do everything possible to ensure that the Spring Hill facility is utilized to the maximum extent possible."

'A short-term problem'

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, who was Tennessee's governor when the plant was announced in 1985 under the Saturn brand name, issued this statement:

"GM's decision to put its Spring Hill plant on standby is a blow to many employees who work there and to their families, but hopefully it will only be a short-term problem. I have discussed with Governor Bredesen how I can be of as much help as possible to those affected.

"For the longer term, there is no reason why the new GM cannot build cars and trucks at Spring Hill more competitively than at any other location in America. Tennessee offers hundreds of suppliers, one of the country's best four-lane highway systems, a right-to-work law, thousands of trained workers, and low taxes. The Saturn plant was said to be the largest U.S. capital investment in history, and since then, General Motors has spent hundreds of millions modernizing it. For the same reasons that Saturn, Nissan, Volkswagen, and their suppliers located here, Tennessee will continue to be a major automotive center.

"What's more, General Motors has a proud history in Tennessee. As Governor in 1985, I wrote the full-page ad for the Wall Street Journal that proudly said, 'Saturn finally found a home in Spring Hill, Tennessee.' Saturn was the most sought-after plant in America, and, together with Nissan's arrival in 1980, helped attract the auto industry to a state that had almost no auto jobs, and to a region that had few. Today, nearly 150,000 jobs--or about one third of Tennessee's manufacturing jobs--are auto-related, almost all of them at suppliers to the twelve auto-assembly plants that now are located in the southeastern United States."

'Protect American jobs'

As one of 2,500 workers at the General Motors plant that will be idled at least temporarily in November, Michelle Burley has a suggestion for young car buyers: "Buy American and protect American jobs."

"I just feel that the young kids nowadays don't know the history, what General Motors has done for the communities, for the schools and in wartime," said Burley, a breast cancer survivor and single mother of four who has 28 years with GM. "They see a cute car. They just don't understand the history."

Burley works in the parts warehouse at the Spring Hill facility, which was built to be GM's small car division with the Saturn brand. She said she knew there was a threat that GM might shut down the Spring Hill plant when she bought a new home six months ago.

"I wanted somewhere for my kids to be," she said. "I'm not going to stop living."

If GM decides not to reopen, "I'll have to get another job," said Burley, 50, who gets cancer treatments monthly. "I'll do something. I'm just not going to lay around and die."

Burley's grandfather and mother both worked for GM in Michigan.

Longtime UAW worker Todd Horton, an editor of the newspaper for Local 1853, said GM told workers it doesn't know how long production will be idled and added that resumption will depend on market conditions. Spring Hill will compete against another plant in Orion, Mich., and GM's Janesville, Wis., plant that closed in April, for the right to build a new subcompact car that GM considers key to its survival.

"They said this is one where we need to build these cars well and inexpensively, and our ability to do that is what's going to drive this decision," Gov. Phil Bredesen said Monday.

"I think we will be extremely competitive for it. It is a modern plant, it is a very flexible plant. With small cars, a good part of the issue is being able to build them inexpensively and competitively, and we've got all the tools to do that."

'Not as bad as it could be'

Union officials at Spring Hill also expressed measured optimism.

"This is not as bad as it could be," said Mike Herron, chairman of UAW Local 1853's bargaining committee. "I'm an optimist. We would have preferred the Traverse continue to be built. The absolute worst would be a plant closure."

Herron thinks Spring Hill may have a leg up because a recent retooling to build the Traverse gave the plant the most modern equipment in GM.

"There's a billion dollars worth of equipment put in this place over the last 18 months," Herron said.

Herron points to another advantage. The UAW local and Spring Hill work force have agreed to operate the plant seven days a week without overtime, he said.

The plant has had more flexible work rules than others thanks to its history. Production began there in 1990 with the Saturn, GM's small-car answer to Japanese competitors. The factory made more than 3.7 million vehicles for the Saturn brand until 2007, when it shut for the Traverse retooling.

Full-scale production of the Traverse began in October 2008.

600 will keep working

GM said the stamping, polymers, service parts and Powertrain operations at Spring Hill will continue.

State Sen. Bill Ketron, a Murfreesboro Republican whose district includes Spring Hill, said GM officials told him the plant will phase down to 604 employees when assembly production ends.

As GM faltered, the federal government injected $50 billion of taxpayer money and got 60 percent of the company's equity. President Barack Obama's administration insisted on the departure of GM's top executive and pushed for a bankruptcy filing.

"GM has a better chance to succeed, and the people in Middle Tennessee have a better chance of getting their jobs back, if the federal government gets out. I want to see the federal government out of the business of running auto companies as quickly as possible," Alexander said in Nashville.

Spring Hill Mayor Michael Dinwiddie said GM's announcement that the plant will be idled or placed on "stand by" status is "bittersweet" and will affect many families.

"GM has largely shaped the entire country," he said. "I don't know how you replace an employer like that."

-- The Associated Press contributed to this report.