Its capacity utilization has been significantly lower than at either Ford or Chrysler. For Honda, the equivalent figure was almost 469,000. All that helps explain why the strikes at Flint have been so hard to resolve. The number of GM jobs in the town has shrunk from 76,000 in the 1970s to about 33,000 today. Now, with the big Buick City assembly plant scheduled to close next year, union leaders have invoked the specter of another 11,000 jobs being lost during the next two years.
Some analysts point out that part of the problem relates to timing.
The average age of workers at the Flint body parts plant is about 50, for example. As David Littman, economist with Michigan-based Comerica bank, has pointed out, Wall Street wants to see GM matching the Japanese transplants' labor practices within five years. That means more job cuts. During the Memorial Day weekend, it moved dies out of the Flint body parts plant to protect the impending production of its vital new light-truck lines. That was an action guaranteed to raise temperatures in what were already difficult negotiations, and to fuel the atmosphere of mistrust.