Word: flints
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Technological change, for better or worse, has been a fact of life around Flint, Zuckschwerdt says. When he was hired at GM more than 40 years ago, the old engine plant that once stood next door employed more than 4,000 workers building V8 engines, Zuckschwerdt says. When the new Volt line starts production next year, the Flint South plant, which also makes V6s used in various GM vehicles, will have the same capacity as the old V8-engine plant. It will also produce machined block heads and crankshafts. But it will have fewer than 600 production employees. "The productivity...
...Volt is scheduled to start production in late 2010 as GM's first extended-range electric vehicle, which can travel up to 40 miles on electricity from a single battery charge, while the Flint-built engine will serve as a backup generator that extends the car's range to about 300 miles. (See 10 milestones on the road to GM's bankruptcy...
...Duane Zuckschwerdt, UAW Region 1C director and a member of the union's top executive board, readily acknowledges that Flint is often held up as a symbol of crippling labor-management strife, but he sees the Volt investment as a significant milestone for the city. "I know you go just 50 miles west of here and they think the town is dead," Zuckschwerdt says. "But it's not. GM knows they have a very talented workforce here," he says...
...built the Flint South plant only 10 years ago, but rows of empty lockers inside the plant's washroom offer silent testimony to the changes around the giant automaker, which emerged from bankruptcy in July thanks to a $50 billion infusion of cash from the U.S. Treasury Department and is counting on the Volt to help restore the company's reputation...
...Winter, who has spent 34 years in various blue-collar jobs at GM, notes, "I've seen lots of changes but this is the biggest and the best." Nevertheless, it will take some adjustment since much of the old camaraderie that came with working in the plants around Flint is vanishing as GM downsizes. "It's kind of sad. I remember how many people used to come walking out of the shops. It used to be like oceans of people. Now it's going to be like you're working by yourself," says Winter. But at least...