GM Workers to Vote on Plan to End Strike That Shut Brea Plant

General Motors Corp. employees in Michigan will vote today on a tentative agreement that could end a strike that had forced a GM seat cover plant in Brea to close this week.

About 200 employees at the Brea plant were sent home Tuesday by managers of Delphi Interior & Design, a GM subsidiary based in Warren, Mich. Delphi officials linked the temporary shutdown to stalled demand for seat covers.

Nearly 5,500 GM employees in the Pontiac, Mich., plant that manufactures pickup trucks could return to work Friday if the settlement is approved today.

Delphi spokeswoman Karen Cullen said it’s uncertain how quickly the Brea plant would reopen. “We hope to have people back to work as soon as possible,” Cullen said. “But we’ll just have to wait until we find out that they need more material from us.”

The Delphi plant sells seat covers to Lear Seating Corp., a Michigan company that, in turn, sells completed truck seats to GM. “We have to wait for word from our customer that they want more material,” Cullen said.

A second Delphi plant in Juarez, Mexico, manufactures seat covers that Lear uses to produce seats for GM plants in Wisconsin and Ontario. The Mexican plant was not affected by the Michigan strike, Cullen said.

Delphi opened the Brea plant early in 1994 and began producing truck seat covers in July. Many of its employees transferred to Brea from other GM facilities that were closed in recent years as the auto maker struggled to reduce operating costs. A number of Delphi’s employees reportedly transferred from the now-closed GM plant in Van Nuys.