GM speeds up, extends shutdown at Fairfax
Kansas City Business Journal
As General Motors Corp. faces declining sales and seeks to conserve cash, it bumped up and extended a holiday shutdown of its Fairfax Assembly Plant in Kansas City, Kan., and will slow down its production line sooner than previously announced.
Tony Sapienza, corporate spokesman for General Motors (NYSE: GM), said Friday that the company now will shut down production for two weeks starting Jan. 5. Sapienza said the company had planned to shut down the Fairfax production line for one week starting Jan. 26.
“What we’re trying to do right now in this unprecedented market — really a collapse of the market across the industry for all automakers — is fine-tune our production to really make sure that we’re producing only what consumers are asking for,” Sapienza said. “If it was a normal market, you don’t have to necessarily jump on every dime when you see a small shift in the market. You wait to see if the trend plays out. In this market, in our current financial situation, we’re trying to be as efficient as we possibly can.”
Sapienza also said that a previously scheduled slowdown of the production line will take place on Jan. 20 instead of Feb. 2. So the production slowdown will occur before the previously announced layoff of 3,600 workers in February at 10 production plants, including Fairfax.
Sapienza said the company has not decided how many workers will be laid off at Fairfax, which produces the popular Chevrolet Malibu and the Saturn Aura.
He said that the Malibu still is doing well and that sales are up year to date when compared with last year.
“So what you’re seeing us do here is not because of declining interest in the Malibu, but as the whole market drops in volume, we’re making adjustments to make sure we’re in line with it,” Sapienza said.
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