General Motors invests $483 million in Spring Hill facility, rehires 483 workers

Filed under: Technology, GM, Earnings/Financials

GM Ecotec engineGeneral Motors has announced that it will invest a total of $483 million in its Spring Hill, Tennessee powertrain facility by 2012. The news comes as GM continues to move toward building more fuel-efficient engines. The automaker says that the next-generation Ecotec four-cylinder engine, complete with direct-injection, will be built in the Spring Hill plant. Those funds will also go toward bringing back a total of 483 workers that have been idle since last year.

In 2009, the company laid off 2,000 workers at the Spring Hill facility as part of its restructuring efforts, though 800 of those individuals relocated to other GM plants around the country. Even so, that didn’t do much for the economy in Maury County, Tennessee. According to the Associated Press, the locality has one of the highest unemployment rates in the state – 14.5 percent in July.

Until now, the future of the Spring Hill plant had been more than a little uncertain. The facility was originally designed to produce Saturn vehicles, but was reworked to produce the Chevrolet Traverse to the tune of $600 million. GM then pulled Traverse from the plant last year.

[Sources: Associated Press via Google, General Motors]

General Motors invests $483 million in Spring Hill facility, rehires 483 workers originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 17 Sep 2010 13:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Saab moves to rehire dismissed workers after summer break; one-in-three refuse

Filed under: Plants/Manufacturing, GM, Saab

When General Motors was on the precipice of dropping Saab forever, we imagine that the good workers of Trollhättan, Sweden were more than a little nervous. After all, how many high-paying jobs are there there in Scandanavia in the middle of a global recession? Well, it turns out that there may be quite a few jobs available if you consider the high volume of workers who reportedly turned down an offer to come back to work at Saab.

Sweden’s SVT reports that as many as one-in-three laid off Saab workers turned down offers to come back to work in factory jobs for the company. Håkan Skött, Metallklubbens chairman at Saab in Trollhättan reportedly told SVT that up to 30 percent of the workers got new jobs or invested in training, adding “it’s really nice that people have found other solutions.” it’s also good that Saab was still able to rehire 224 workers to help edge up vehicle production from a reported 28 units per hour to a max speed of 39 vehicles in any 60 minute period. The added workers will increase annual production to 60,000 units in total, and the company will need to hire still more workers if it plans to increase production more through a second shift.

[Source: SVT via Saabs United | Image: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty]

Saab moves to rehire dismissed workers after summer break; one-in-three refuse originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 18 Aug 2010 18:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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UK road workers lift parked cars, paint lines underneath them, then give warnings

Filed under: Etc., Government/Legal, Humor

If you’ve ever felt like the meter maid is out to get you, you’re not alone. You may not be paranoid, either. According to a report in the UK’s Daily Mail, a Manchester work crew recently found their efforts hindered by a number of cars parked along a side street. Rather than simply wait and close down the road after the vehicles left, the crew brought in a flatbed tow truck with a crane, lifted said vehicles off of the road, commenced to paint new parking restriction lines and replaced the vehicles facing the opposite direction.

Here’s where things get dicey. Before the paint even managed to dry, three of the vehicles on the road were ticketed for being illegally parked. Needless to say, the owners objected, and eventually the citations were swapped with notes with a warning to be more careful about where the owners choose park their vehicles in the future.

[Source: Daily Mail]

UK road workers lift parked cars, paint lines underneath them, then give warnings originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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