General Motors said Wednesday it will invest $906.7 million at its plants in Spring Hill, Tenn., and Bay City, Mich., creating or retaining 904 jobs, the latest in a string of investment announcements by the Detroit Three in recent days.
GM said it will invest $788.7 million to retool its Spring Hill plant so it can build an all-new, fuel-efficient engine and to modernize. That investment will create 792 new jobs and retain 16 jobs, GM said. The automaker also said it will invest $118 million at its Bay City Powertrain plant, where it builds engine components. That investment will create 29 new jobs and retain 67 jobs, the company said.
The investments are part of commitments GM made as part of a new, four-year contract ratified last fall by UAW members to invest $8.3 billion over the next four years at its new plants.
Today's GM news also comes on the heels of Ford's announcement on Tuesday that it plans to invest $1.4 billion to build new transmissions at its Livonia plant and $200 million at its Avon Lake, Ohio, plant to build Ford Super Duty pickups. Also Tuesday, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles said it will invest about $75 million to build a new four-cylinder engine line at its Trenton plant.
The Ford and FCA announcements are also part of commitments made to the UAW to invest in U.S. and create new jobs.
And, even though the investments were promised by the automakers last year, the official announcements are important because all of the contractual commitments are dependent on economic and market conditions. That means automakers are not legally required to carry them out if industry sales decline or the economy sours.
Taken together, the investments announced this week can be viewed as vindication for the UAW, which fought hard to secure additional U.S. plant announcements in its contract talks with the Detroit Three last fall. Still, the UAW also has lost some major battles for U.S. investment with the Detroit Three as Ford and FCA announced plans to move production of small cars and SUVs to Mexico.
In Tennessee, GM has announced investments of more than $2 billion for its Spring Hill plant since 2010. This includes a $148-million investment announced in February to re-purpose flexible machining and assembly equipment to build V8 engines.
“Today’s announcement reinforces our absolute faith in this facility, and our strong commitment to this community and the state of Tennessee," Arvin Jones, GM North America manufacturing manager, said in a statement.
Spring Hill is now building the Cadillac XT5 and the GMC Acadia.
“UAW members at Spring Hill and Bay City have well-earned reputations for quality work and craftsmanship,” UAW Vice President Cindy Estrada said in a statement. “Since the 2015 collective bargaining agreement, GM has invested more than $1.7 billion and UAW-GM members, their families and their communities will all benefit for years to come.”
GM's announcement comes on the heels of last week's news that production at the Spring Hills plant would be temporarily shut down after a pair of earthquakes in Japan disrupted the automakers supply chain. GM's facilities at Spring Hill; Oshawa Flex Assembly, Canada; Lordstown, Ohio; and Fairfax, Kan. are be shuttered for the two weeks beginning this past Monday,
By: Brent Snavely (Detroit Free Press).
Photo: AP.
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