GM Van Nuys Plan to Shut for Week; Parts Snag Cited

General Motors’ assembly plant in Van Nuys will be shut down for a week, and possibly longer, starting next Monday because of a parts shortage resulting from the now-settled Delco Electronics strike, company officials said Monday. All 2,850 Van Nuys employees will be idled.

The 7,700 workers at Delco’s Kokomo, Ind., factory returned to work Monday, two days after ratifying a contract that ended their six-day walkout. However, the interruption of parts shipments to Van Nuys depleted the GM plant’s inventory of radios and other electronic parts, leaving it with enough to last only through Wednesday.

The plant was supposed to close for Thanksgiving on Thursday and Friday anyway, and it normally is closed on weekends. So Monday will be the first scheduled workday lost because of the Delco strike.

Delco shipments have started again, but GM does not expect to resume making Chevrolet Camaros and Pontiac Firebirds in Van Nuys until Dec. 8 at the earliest, according to the plant’s manager, Ernest D. Schaefer.

Because the shutdown is strike-related, he said, furloughed workers will not get GM benefits, but many will be eligible for state unemployment compensation.

More than 50,000 GM workers in nine states and Canada have been idled as a result of the Delco strike.