The News Journal from Wilmington, Delaware • Page 6

www Miwareonline.com A6 THE NEWS JOURNAL TUESDAY, JUNE 2, 2009 Boxwood Road plant: More than 60 years of production 1 1945: General Motors Corp. plans new factories to meet postwar demand. Ten years of pleas by the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce pay off when GM decides to build at Boxwood Road. DuPont Co. owns 23 percent of GM's stock.

March 2004: GM announces it will end production of the L-series in summer, idling the plant for nearly a year before production of the Solstice begins. Spring 2005: The Solstice debuts on Donald Trump's reality TV show, The Apprentice" The first 1000 vehicles sell out 41 minutes after the show. rA) ti January 2006: GM adds a third shift to meet demand for the Solstice. Employment is at 1900. October 2006: GM announces it will build the new Chevrolet Camaro in Oshawa, Ontario, investing $661 million in a plant upgrade.

Boxwood Road, the other plant in contention, loses out September 2007: Boxwood Road 1946: Plant built on 185 acres for $9.5 million. 1947: Eight black Pontiac Streamliners are first vehicles to roll off the line Oct 6. With 800 employees, the plant builds 40 Streamliners and Oldsmobile Dynamic Cruisers per hour. 1948: The plant's 1,700 employees pump an estimated $10 million yearly into the local economy. Over the next 15 years, the plant builds the Pontiac Bonneville and Grand Prix, the Oldsmobile 88, the Buick LeSabre and 0 1 i.

Bloomberg file In 2006, a third shift was added to produce the Solstice. News Journal file By 1980, employment at the Boxwood Road plant shown in an aerial view from 1976 exceeded 4,700. News Journal file The first cars roll off the Boxwood Road assembly line in 1947. workers join UAW workers across the country in a strike after the union and the automaker fail to reach agreement on a new contract The national strike lasts only two days, with the two sides reaching a tentative deal. The contract calls for moving production of the Solstice and Saturn Sky to a Kentucky plant in 2012.

A majority of local union members vote to reject the contract February 2008: GM confirms it will cut the third shift at Boxwood Road. The automaker offers voluntary buyouts to all 74,000 of its union workers. About 19,000 workers accept the offer. 1984: Plant retools to build Oldsmobile Delta 88; last of 2.2 million Chevettes roll off the line. Stalled contract talks spark a six-day walkout by 4,000 United Auto Worker members.

others. Boxwood Road holds GM's annual stockholders meeting each spring through 1964. 1950: Work force reaches 2,800. 1952: Work force at 2,200. 1955: Plant adds second shift 4,400 workers build 60 cars per hour.

1957: U.S. Supreme Court antitrust ruling orders DuPont to sell holdings in GM. 1964: Plant begins building Chevrolets Impala, Caprice, Bel Air as well as Buicks. A record 190,000 cars are produced, contributing $69 million to the 14' XMr concludes Delaware has little or no chance of changing GM's mind and should focus on finding its own manufacturers. 1994: GM says it is studying possible development of a new small-car line that would be built exclusively at Boxwood Road.

In November, GM announces the Boxwood Road plant will handle overflow production of its new Malibu sedans, extending the plant's closing date by two years. May 1995: Local union workers approve a new, more flexible contract modeled after a similar pact at the Saturn plant in Spring Hill, Tenn. August 1996: GM announces it will build the new Saturn L-series at Boxwood Road. The state provides $1 million to retrain plant workers. May 1999: In a ceremony, the Boxwood Road factory unveils its new identity as a Saturn plant June 2000: About 490 workers are laid off and two production shifts are consolidated into one because of slow sales of the L-series Employment drops to 2,000.

January 2004: GM says the Boxwood Road plant will stop making the L-series and begin producing the Pontiac Solstice roadster in 2005. The automaker invests $50 million in the plant to convert its body shop and assembly line to the new Kappa platform, designed for small, rear-wheel-drive vehicles. Employment is at L200. aia mm I m1 4 1 APfile The last Chevette rolled off the line on May 12, 1984. 1986: Production stops Feb.

5, with 4,800 workers idled, as a $311 million rebuild puts in robot welders to make cars the Corsica and the Beretta Workers are retrained at Delaware Technical Community College as part of a $16 million program. The first car rolls off the line Oct 6. Assembly stops so all employees can watch. Plant employment hits 5,200. 1989: Slow sales force the plant to cut 450 of 4,100 workers, the first such layoff in 10 years.

state economy. 1965: Work force reaches 4,300. DuPont divests the last of its GM stock The automaker shifts stockholder meetings from Boxwood Road to Detroit 1971: The 3 millionth car, a Chevrolet is built 1973: The plant lays off half of its 4,300 workers as part of company-wide cutbacks. Energy crisis ends Buick production. 1975: Plant retools for Chevrolet News Journal fiteROBERT CRAIG UAW members at Boxwood strike in September 2007.

December 2008: GM cuts one of the two remaining shifts and lays off about 400 workers. Boxwood Road now employs 578 hourly workers. GM says it will temporarily close the plant through most of February as part of a companywide production cut The Bush administration extends a total of $13.4 billion in emergency loans to GM and Chrysler. February 2009: GM outlines a severe restructuring that would slash about 19 percent of its global work force and close five U.S. plants.

March 2009: A total of 211 Boxwood Road workers accept GM's latest buyout offer. April 2009: Plant managers cut production at Boxwood Road because of the slumping auto market leading to 90 layoffs. GM details a deeper restructuring that calls for closing factories, including four assembly plants, and eliminating the Pontiac brand by 2010. June 1, 2009: GM files for bankruptcy. Wilmington's Boxwood Road Plant will close in July.

-if. -ii r. ii News Journal file The plant was retooled in 1975 to produce the Chevrolet Chevette. 199L The plant builds its 7 millionth vehicle, a white Beretta, May GM stops making cars at its Linden, N.J., plant shifting the work to Boxwood. 1992: Citing the plant's age, high shipping costs and uncertainty over the future of the Corsica and Beretta, GM announces it will close the Boxwood Road plant (and six others across the country) in 1996.

Employment is at 3,500. 1993: Gov. Tom Carper creates a task force led by former DuPont chairman Irving Shapiro to persuade GM to rethink its decision or find another manufacturer to use the plant The task force I TS CD Chevette, GM's first small car. Boxwood Road builds 70 Chevettes per hour until 1984. 1980: Employment at the plant exceeds 4,700.

1983: GM marks its 75th year, the Boxwood Road plant's 36th. "We're just hoping we can stay around another 36," a local union officials says. News Journal file In 1992, GM said it would close the Chevy Corsica-producing plant Boxwood: 'Most challenging location' Economy: Decline of Delaware auto industry started back in '85 when DuPont Co. President Pierre S. du Pont began buying GM stock.

The Wilmington chemical company wielded a controlling interest in the automaker until the U.S. Supreme Court ordered DuPont to sell its GM holdings in 1957. GM opened the Boxwood Road factory in 1947, and workers built iconic B-platform vehicles through the years, including the Pontiac Bonneville, Buick LeSabre and Chevrolet Impala. From an initial work force of 800, employment climbed steadily, reaching 4,300 by 1965. In subsequent decades, Boxwood Road workers built the small Chevrolet Chevette, the Oldsmobile Delta 88 and the Chevrolet Corsica and Beretta.

In 1992, GM said it would close Boxwood Road and six other plants in 1996. But the automaker changed course in 1994, moving overflow production of its new Chevrolet Malibu sedans to the factory. In 1996, GM said the plant would build the new Saturn L-series in 1999. The line of mid-size sedans and station wagons was largely a disappointment, and GM cancelled the L-series in 2004. It started building the Pontiac Solstice sports car at Boxwood Road the following year.

The sleek roadster was popular upon its debut, and GM added a third shift in 2006 to keep up with demand for the Solstice, and later the similar Saturn Sky and Opel GT, which was exported to European markets. But in 2007, the Boxwood Road plant suddenly faced an uncertain future, as a new contract between GM and the UAW called for moving production of the Solstice and Sky to a Kentucky plant in 2012. Last year, GM cut two production shifts and hundreds of workers at Boxwood Road. Boxwood Road managers slowed production at the plant in April, leading to still more layoffs. Boxwood Road workers and state officials held out hope until the end that the factory would be one of three to be idled rather than closed, leaving open the possibility of future production.

In and around the plant Monday, there was anger at union leaders, at GM, even at those who turned to foreign-made cars without considering the consequences. "People buying foreign cars, they don't believe it affects their neighbors or their country," said autoworker Bob Venuto of New Jersey as he ended his shift Monday. Staff reporters Erir Ruth and Nicholas Penac contridufcd to this story, Contact Andrew Eder at 324-2789 or aedertjfdelawareonlim.tom. FROM PAGE Al Lee called the decision to close the Boxwood Road plant "very difficult" but said it was motivated by the impending elimination of the two-seater sports cars and logistical difficulties with the factory's configuration and location. The automaker is trying to run more of its plants round-the-clock to improve efficiency, and modifying the Boxwood Road plant to accommodate a new vehicle would involve significant costs, Lee said.

In addition, he said Delaware represents GM's "most challenging location" for inbound and outbound shipping costs. "We simply had no product to allocate to the plant," Lee said. A 'punch to the gut' The closing will mean the loss of the last operating auto-assembly plant on the East Coast, and another blow to Delaware's manufacturing sector. State officials and Delaware's congressional delegation had mounted a strenuous defense of the plant in recent weeks, touting the flexibility of the work force and the spirit of cooperation between labor and management at the factory. "It's incredibly disappointing for the workers," Gov.

Jack Markell said. "This was just a tremendous work force at this plant. If you didn't know who was labor and who was management when you walked in, you couldn't tell the difference." Sen. Tom Carper, who fended off the threat of Boxwood Road's closing as governor in the 1990s, called Monday's announcement a "punch to the gut." He said that as GM shrinks its manufacturing footprint, it's likely to receive less support from members of Congress including the three from Delaware. "We'll certainly attempt to be supportive, but my guess is we won't be moving heaven and earth the next time they call," Carper said.

Vice President Joe Biden, a former U.S. senator from Delaware, called the Boxwood Road plant "a staple of our state for over 60 years. "Whether it's a family member, neighbor or friend we all know someone who is personally affected by GM's decision today to close the doors of the plant," Biden said in a statement. The plant's 451 active hourly workers, represented by United Auto Workers Local 435, face an uncertain future. Raut said they will be eligible for a new round of early-retirement and buyout offers from GM.

The company is offering a $25,000 vehicle voucher, a $20,000 payment for production workers and a payment for skilled trades workers who retire early. For those who take a buyout, the company is offering the car voucher plus payments ranging from $45,000 to $115,000, depending on years of service. Workers can also apply for transfer to another plant, but the dismal auto market and GM's plant closings may make transfers difficult. Transfers are done according to UAW rules. "Everybody was looking to go to the Baltimore transmission plant," said John Joswick, a retiree from the Boxwood Road plant.

"But these other plants can only take so many employees." UAW Local 435 officials did not respond to phone calls Monday. A large percentage of Boxwood Road workers are transfers from shuttered GM assembly plants in Baltimore and Linden, N.J. Those who look for new jobs will likely have a hard time finding a job that pays as well, or offers such generous benefits, as their auto-plant jobs. "This will ripple through the economy," said Robert Dye, senior economist with PNC Financial Services Group. "Communities are going to feel the loss of those wages." Markell said the state Department of Labor and Department of Health and Social Services will take the lead in working with displaced employees to retrain them for new jobs and sign them up for safety-net programs.

State officials are set to meet with the plant's leadership and union officials today. The governor said he has been in contact with federal officials about programs and resources designated for communities affected by the auto industry's downsizing. Some blue-collar job seekers have been frustrated by federal regulations limiting who is eligible for retraining assistance. Markell said he has discussed that subject with White House and U.S. Department of Labor officials.

"The way things have been in the past will probably not be sufficient to help these folks," Markell said. GM's Raut said the company has not yet determined what will happen with the Boxwood Road plant's 94 salaried employees. The company said Monday that it would cut 7,900 salaried employees across the company this year. A sharp fall The announcement of Boxwood Road's closing represents a sharp fall for a facility that employed more than 5,000 as recently as 1906. Delaware enjoyed close ties to GM since iy 4, their skills.

"Those people don't have many possibilities. Most workers benefit from some sort of buyout package. GM has good terms. But the real impact is a lot of these workers still have many years to work," she said. "It's a loss to society of this productive ability.

It's unlikely Delaware will be able to attract the kinds of compa nies likely to use those kinds of skills." For the more than 3,000 retirees from GM's Boxwood Road plant, a reduction in health care benefits could affect their retirement lifestyles. "It's certainly going to be a tough situation for many folks, many retirees," Vitner said. The ripple effect Other Delaware businesses, from the DuPont Co. to local shops, catered to the auto industry. GM is an important customer of DuPont, said Lori Captain, manager of business communications at DuPont.

DuPont's sales to the motor vehicle industry represented about 20 percent of total sales in 2008, she said. More than 100 DuPont products are used in every major vehicle system from air bags to window assemblies. BASF, which acquired Ciba's pigment production operation in Newport, is also a major supplier, Koropeckyj said. And there are some smaller suppliers, Sharpley said. Adding to the sting, GM has said it also plans to dissolve 2,100 dealerships, which results in direct and indirect job losses, she said.

Those dealerships have not yet been identified. Already Chrysler has said it will discontinue franchises at three dealerships in Delaware. Finally, there's the psychological impact, Sharpley said. Even those who are not directly hurt by the bankruptcy will feel inclined to save for a rainy day. "How many people really feel their jobs are safe anymore? It's only prudent to prepare for the unexpected.

They stop spending," he said. On the upside, some say the bankruptcy filings could have a positive effect on the economy in the end. "You don't go broke because you're bankrupt. You go bankrupt because you're broke," said Juliet Moringiello, professor of bankruptcy law at Widener University School of Law. If GM moves quickly and restructures as a smaller, more viable company, the sickness might be acute, but not chronic, she said.

"With a bankruptcy filing the pain might be felt all at once rather than GM spiraling toward death over the next five years," she said. Contact Maureen Milord at 324-2881 or mmilfimldetamreonline.com. FROM PAGE Al The loss of both Boxwood Road and Chrysler's Newark assembly plant, which closed in December, could be a drag on the state's economy for as long as two years, economists said. "It's not going to help" the recovery, said George Sharpley, labor market economist with the Delaware Department of Labor. "Those jobs are not easy to replace." The closing will directly affect roughly 550 active employees at Boxwood Road, along with 515 laid-off hourly workers who had hoped to be called back to work.

Retirees, suppliers and dealers also will take a hit. A gradual loss Sophia Koropeckyj, managing director of Moody's Economy.com, said the rule of thumb in regional economics holds that for every auto job lost 10 more jobs are potentially eliminated throughout the economy. By that estimate, the state could potentially lose 11,000 jobs. However, Koropeckyj believes that number is too high when it comes to the impact on Delaware. The shock here will be cushioned by the slow seepage in auto-industry jobs in over the past 20 years.

In the first quarter of 2009, auto manufacturing provided about 600 jobs in Delaware or slightly less than two-tenths of 1 percent of total employment in the state, according to John Staple-ford, senior economist at Moody's Economy Wages paid by auto manufacturing represented less than one-half of 1 percent of total wages paid in the state. Compare that to 1985, when automakers employed about 5,200 people in the state and represented nearly 2 percent of total employment. By 1988, GM and Chrysler combined were second only to the DuPont Co. in providing private-sector jobs in the state. Wages paid by auto manufacturing represented more than 4 percent of total wages paid in the state in 1985.

"The air has been leaking out of the balloon relatively steadily since 1985," Stapleford said. "It's not going to be the disaster it will be for these metropolitan areas in the Midwest." But the state will feel the loss of the wages paid to autoworkers, Stapleford said. The industry not only paid well, but was generous with benefits, he said. The talents possessed by skilled autoworkers transfer best to the construction industry. But both the commercial and residential construction industries have been off, limiting new job opportunities for autoworkers, Stapleford said.

Koropeckyj said the big challenge for Delaware autoworkers and the state will be finding jobs that make good use of.