GM to Close Flint Plant in ‘99; 3,000 Affected

General Motors Corp. on Friday said it is closing its Buick LeSabre and Pontiac Bonneville factory, affecting about a third of the 9,500 workers at its vast Buick City complex in Flint, Mich., and bringing more job uncertainty to GM’s hometown.

The No. 1 auto maker said the 94-year-old assembly plant will close in 1999 and the company will begin building a new engine factory in the Flint area next spring.

Most of the roughly 3,000 Buick City hourly employees will get a chance to work at other GM operations, the company said Friday, although it didn’t have an estimate of how many would be retained.

Analysts and industry observers have expected the closing for months. Still, union leaders were upset by the news.

“Closing this facility is a betrayal of GM’s work force, of the community and of the country, especially in light of GM’s huge profits,” said United Auto Workers President Stephen Yokich.

GM officials said the final decision was made this week, and the company wanted to end speculation that a new model would be built there beyond 1999.

Workers were told of the closing Friday.

The new engine plant will employ some 400 workers, including several hundred of the 1,900 employees at a Flint V-8 engine factory slated to close in 1999 or 2000. Investment in the new engine plant could exceed $500 million, GM said.

The auto maker said it decided it would need only two full-size car assembly plants--in Lake Orion and Hamtramck, Mich. GM hasn’t decided yet whether to continue production of the LeSabre or Bonneville after 1999.

GM was founded in Flint in 1908 and thrived there for decades, employing about 75,000 people in the area during the 1970s. It has cut more than half of those jobs since the 1970s and today employs about 35,000 people at 18 plants and offices in the Flint area.

The Buick City complex, which includes operations other than the assembly plant, employs 9,500 people, down from about 26,300 at its peak in the 1950s.

Still, the Flint area remains the largest concentration of GM employees in the country. A GM parts plant and metal fabrication plant in the Flint area employ 3,800 and 3,300, respectively.