GM will use Mexican axles to reopen 2 plants

[DainBramaged]

General Motors is reopening two assembly plants this month with axles supplied from Mexico by American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc., sources have told Automotive News.

The 7-week-old UAW strike at five American Axle plants had shut GM's light-truck plant in Fort Wayne, Ind., until the company this week resumed production there of the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra. GM also intends to restart production of its full-sized pickups in Oshawa, Ontario, starting the week of Monday, April 21.

American Axle is supplying the plants from its factory in Guanajuato, Mexico, the sources said.

It is the same plant that has supplied axles and other parts throughout the strike to GM's Silao, Mexico, factory and an SUV plant in Arlington, Texas. But GM has enough inventory of SUVs at dealerships. Consequently, GM is shifting the axles to the pickup plants as it closes Arlington at the end of this week, the sources said.

GM spokesman Dan Flores said GM does not talk about where it gets parts. American Axle spokeswoman Renee Rogers declined to comment. About 3,650 UAW workers struck American Axle on Feb. 26, refusing company demands for concessions that would cut wages in half to $14 an hour.

On Monday, April 7, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger met with American Axle CEO Richard E. Dauch to try to jump-start talks. The leaders agreed to bring their full bargaining teams together for negotiations beginning Wednesday, April 9. Since it began, the strike has shut or crippled 30 GM plants. American Axle makes about 80 percent of the axles GM uses in North America.

American Axle's Mexican shipments to GM's Oshawa plant could become a practice pattern. UAW executives are worried that American Axle intends to supply axles from Guanajuato for the next-generation 2009 Chevrolet Camaro muscle car. Late last year, American Axle idled its Buffalo, N.Y., axle plant, which is just 120 miles from Oshawa, where the Camaro will be built. Guanajuato is about 2,000 miles from the assembly plant.

http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080408/ANA02/578136238/1054 (subscription only)

[jody]

1. And transported in Mexican trucks over the Trans-Texas Corridor to be built with U.S. taxpayer $.

[jody]

2. I see you don't like "Rethug gun lovers" but I hope you like "Dem gun lovers" because our platform

says "We will protect Americans' Second Amendment right to own firearms".

[DainBramaged]

4. The Second amendment doesn't give you the right to own a gun

The states do. This isn't 1776, and we don't NEED a well-armed militia, that's why we have police and the military, and if you think I'm going to get baited into a horse shit gun lovers argument here, I'll just click the red x as fast as you can blink.

[jody]

6. SCOTUS will deliver its opinion in D.C. v. Heller in June and will almost certainly rule that the

2nd Amendment protects the inalienable right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms for self-defense.

That will be good news for the Dem Party and gun-grabbers can either learn to live with the 2nd or find another home.

Have a good day and goodbye. :hi:

[DainBramaged]

8. Goodbye to you too

Love your children, not your guns.:puke:

[Omaha Steve]

3. This all started under Bush Sr.

More than just union brothers and sisters. These are AMERICANS and our country itself that is hemorrhaging from it's middle class. The long time dream of the wealthy is coming true. If we don't turn the tide next year with both houses on OUR side, there won't be much left of the American dream. We will be fighting for the low paying jobs nobody wanted. We will be living with those veterans under bridges that a Fox personality said don't exist. When most of the Fox crowd realize THEY TOO are under a bridge, who will they blame?



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada-U.S._Free_Trade_Agreement

Free Trade Agreement (FTA) was a trade agreement signed by Canada and the United States on January 2, 1988. The agreement, finalized by October 1987, removed several trade restrictions in stages over a ten year period, and resulted in a great increase in cross-border trade. A few years later, it was superseded by the North American Free Trade Agreement, which included Mexico as well.

As dictated by the agreement, the main purposes of the Canadian-United States Free Trade Agreement are as follows:

* eliminate barriers to trade in goods and services between Canada and the United States;
* facilitate conditions of fair competition within the free-trade area established by the Agreement;
* liberalize significantly conditions for investment within that free-trade area;
* establish effective procedures for the joint administration of the Agreement and the resolution of disputes;
* lay the foundation for further bilateral and multilateral cooperation to expand and enhance the benefits of the Agreement.


More at link.

[DainBramaged]

5. And we have become dependent on Canada for lumber, natural gas and oil

and Mexico for cheap labor both here and there. NAFTA, the one thing I can not forgive Bill Clinton for.

[Fovea]

7. I agree.

NAFTA has been a race to the bottom that has done the nearly impossible-- it has redefined poverty in Mexico.