DETROIT -- The last remaining General Motors Co. plant in western Michigan may become extinct after a vote to ratify a new contract for workers failed by a 2-1 margin Thursday.
“Basically, we are disappointed,” GM spokeswoman Kim Carpenter said today. “It's now a matter of going back and having more discussions. We're focused on getting a contract.”
A spokesperson for UAW could not be reached.
GM took control of the former Delphi Corp. valve-train plant after Delphi emerged from bankruptcy last October. The plant, which once employed 3,000 workers, now has a workforce of about 500.
Three sister plants, all spun off to Delphi in 1999 and then returned to GM, still have to vote on their own Memorandum of Understanding, the Grand Rapids Press reported. The plants were bundled into GM Component Holding last year.
The concessions the workers were unwilling to make included frozen wages and a drop in the skilled trades' pay scale by $3 an hour. The final vote was 136 yes to 238 no.
The latest possible closure comes on the heels of a GM stamping plant that shut down in the same part of the state in December.
