LORDSTOWN - The ripple effect of recession-linked cutbacks at the General Motors Corp. Lordstown Complex will be felt among suppliers to the giant carmaking factory, a union leader said Friday.
Jim Graham, president of United Auto Workers Local 1112 at the Lordstown assembly plant, estimated 150 to 200 workers at four plants that supply car parts will be laid off indefinitely due to a second round of cutbacks at the Lordstown Complex.
The four UAW-represented suppliers - Lear, Intier, Automodular and Jamestown - employ 400 to 450 union members combined, Graham said. The companies make a range of parts, including seats, door pads and fascias, for the Lordstown-built Chevrolet Cobalt and Pontiac G5 small cars.
The latest GM Lordstown layoffs total 890 on top of nearly 1,100 announced a month ago. The reduction will eliminate the third shift that began in early August and extend the plant's shutdown that starts Dec. 24 to Feb. 2 instead of the previous Jan. 20.
Graham said 700 to 750 workers are expected to be idled from the assembly plant on top of the nearly 900 who were set to be sidelined in the first round of layoffs.
Layoffs at the next-door Metal Center stamping and fabricating plant are expected to total 154 production workers in addition to the 130 in the first round, according to Dave Green, president of Local 1714. He said an unknown number of skilled trades workers will boost that total.
The furloughs, which were announced to workers starting at 10:30 p.m. Thursday, will continue until ''we see how the market responds,'' complex spokesman Tom Mock said.
The new cutbacks stem from an economy that gives little hope for a turnaround, officials said.
''It's a state of fear on the economy level that we haven't seen for a generation, if not more,'' Mock said. ''Until we can restimulate the economy, it'll be difficult for our industry and others. We're hoping measures can be taken that will reinvigorate consumer confidence.''
Sales of the Chevrolet Cobalt tumbled 53.6 percent to 6,319 in November from the same month in 2007, the fewest since the car was being launched in November 2004. Pontiac G5 sales plummeted 50.1 percent to 1,083.
Year-to-date Cobalt sales fell 4.2 percent to 175,259 and 9.6 percent for the G5 to 22,975.
Graham said his members ''are depressed,'' adding he's trying to stay positive that GM can get a multibillion dollar bridge loan to help tide it over until sales improve, perhaps by the traditional start of buying in March.
Chief executives of the domestic Big 3 automakers - GM, Ford and Chrysler - testified for a second day Friday in Congress for a total of $34 billion in loans.
Green said his members recognize the hard times facing the company ''through no fault of their own. Demand and gas prices are down.''
Car production will be halved to around 750 a day to counter bloated inventories that have reached 200 days supply of the Cobalt and G5 at the current sales pace, Mock said.
The factory will resume operation with about 2,200 workers from 4,250. Depending on their seniority and recent layoff history, idled workers will receive about 90 percent of their pay through state unemployment benefits and Supplementary Unemployment Benefit, which comes from GM, Green said.
A waitress at A&J's Diner simply blurted out ''oh, oh,'' after hearing rumors brought in early Friday from her regular customer, Kyle Kilby, who just got off work at the third shift at the nearby General Motors plant.
The employee at the diner was worried she would no longer be needed to serve breakfast if the automaker discontinued the third shift.
And Kilby, 44, said he only heard rumors while working all night before heading to get his two eggs over easy and French toast.
''Only six months and I'm gonna get laid off?'' Kilby said, sipping his coffee and contemplating his next move.
Kilby said he had worked 12 years at a chicken processing plant in Tennessee and 10 years at a Delphi plant outside of Dayton before transferring here to work on the third, or night, shift at GM, where he works on the motor line fastening a bracket on engines before they're mounted in the car frames.
''Seven other guys transferring over here with me. I just hope I get credit for GM seniority back to 1997,'' Kilby said, explaining that he heard no formal announcement overnight that was reported to be broadcast over closed-circuit television inside the plant to those on the line.
''All I heard was we're all supposed to shutdown Dec. 19 and when he get back in first week of February there will only be two shifts,'' he said.
A divorcee, Kilby said he opted for the transfer when Delphi was sold to Tenneco. He quickly rented an apartment close to the plant here but he still owns a house near Dayton and wonders whether to put his place up for sale.
The Lordstown furloughs are part of nearly 2,000 layoffs GM announced Friday. About 390 are scheduled to be sidelined at the Orion Township, Mich., plant, with another 700 at the Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, factory.
