Jefferson North adding 2nd shift [[1,000 jobs)

[Russix]

http://www.freep.com/article/2010052...mat-and-hiring

[DetroitZack]

Can't complain about 1,080 jobs coming to the city :-D

[MoparDan]

Congrats to y'all up there! Looks like Marchionne is steadily getting the ship on course.
http://www.allpar.com/news/index.php...-new-pay-rates

[Motor City Sam]

Best news this City has had in quite a while.

[English]

Excellent news! Thanks for the link.

[Patrick]

That is some great news and these new hires will probably be from all walks of life too. How much tax money will this bring to the city?

[Danny]

YAY! More Detroit jobs. Now we need more jobs in Michigan

YAY GRANHOLM!

[econ expat]

That is some great news and these new hires will probably be from all walks of life too. How much tax money will this bring to the city?

This is going to rain on the parade but the labor contract allows new hires to be paid $14. per hour- and they will still pay their union dues.
Why did the Freep article not mention this? [[and scroll waaay down in the Detnews article, there is some mention of the actual pay rate buried in there)

$14 is better than zero, there's long lines for minimum wage jobs lately.
But if there is no overtime, that's about $29,000 year.
http://detnews.com/article/20100522/...348/1148/rss25

ast Updated: May 22. 2010 9:52AM New Chrysler jobs to build Cherokee could signal turnaround

Most of the 1,100 new hires to earn lower wages than current workers

Alisa Priddle / The Detroit News

Detroit -- The addition of a second shift and almost 1,100 new workers at Chrysler Group LLC's Jefferson North Jeep assembly plant this summer could signal a comeback for the automaker, Detroit's Big Three and the industry.
"We will see a lot more of that," said Dave Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor.
Cole forecasts the auto industry, including suppliers, will need to hire about 15,000 new workers this year in the United States and about 100,000 a year after that as sales rebound.
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The Chrysler announcement marks the first major hiring since the United Auto Workers union agreed to lower entry-level wages for new employees.
Chrysler Group LLC CEO Sergio Marchionne said the second shift will be added July 19, and most of the 1,080 jobs will be new hires.
Marchionne said he doesn't know when hiring will begin, but company officials said the automaker is not accepting new applications because it has enough applications on file to fill the shift.
All the additional workers will be considered new hires because Chrysler does not have any laid-off workers to recall, said General Holiefield, the UAW vice president who heads the Chrysler department.
Marchionne made the surprise announcement Friday at an event marking the start of production of the all-new 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee that will begin arriving in showrooms next month. It is Chrysler's first new product since the automaker emerged from bankruptcy and formed a partnership with Fiat SpA.
"We are anticipating that there will be strong customer demand," Marchionne said, "so we decided it was prudent to add a second shift of production."
Dealer orders are about a third higher than anticipated in the United States for the sport utility vehicle, which will be exported worldwide, said Mike Manley, who oversees the Jeep brand.
Officials would not say how many Grand Cherokees they expect to sell or give the capacity of the revamped Jefferson North plant. Chrysler has invested $700 million in the SUV and the plant, adding a body shop as part of the facility's makeover.
U.S. Grand Cherokee sales were about 50,300 in 2009, down 32 percent from the year before and a far cry from more than 300,000, its apex, in 1999.
The Detroit plant built 60,600 vehicles last year, according to WardsAuto.com, down from more than 186,000 two years earlier and almost 300,000 in 2000 when the plant hummed on three shifts.
The additional workers will augment the roughly 1,700 workers on the plant's current single shift. But while the existing workers make $28 an hour, new hires, under the terms of the UAW collective bargaining agreement reached in 2007, receive $14 to $16 an hour and less-generous benefits than veteran workers.
"It's a living wage," Holiefield said. "They can take care of their families."
Cole said having workers of varying wages working shoulder to shoulder should not present a problem because it was a labor-negotiated agreement.
And there is precedence elsewhere in the industry. Many suppliers have adopted a two-tier wage, including parts plants owned by automakers.
Chrysler's Jeep plant in Toledo has Chrysler workers doing final vehicle assembly beside the employees of suppliers who run the rest of the plant.
New hires also have the carrot of knowing that they can move into a higher-wage position if enough workers retire, Cole said.
There is a 20 percent cap on the percentage of new hires an automaker is allowed.
Chrysler has hired about 400 new workers to date at the lower wage in a work force of 22,000, Holiefield said. The addition of 1,100 will not come close to reaching the cap.
Ford Motor Co. has hired no assembly workers under the new wage structure.
General Motors Co. President Mark Reuss said in April the automaker may soon start hiring lower-paid hourly workers to boost production of popular new vehicles. Cole said GM first must finish recalling about 5,000 laid-off workers.
To start the event Friday, Marchionne drove a new Grand Cherokee to a makeshift stage, with Gov. Jennifer Granholm riding shotgun.
The CEO, who got a standing ovation from workers even before he made the second-shift announcement, said he would love to be able to announce a third shift at some point. But demand for the new Jeep and a seven-passenger Dodge to be launched later in the year will dictate how much capacity is needed.
"The best work force is here in the Motor City," Granholm said in praising Chrysler's decision to build the flagship Jeep in Detroit.
"It's not made in some Southern cornfield plant."
Added U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing: "It is about an investment in a great city and tells the rest of the world America is going to make things in America.
"Chrysler is back."
apriddle@detnews.com [[313) 222-2504

From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20100522/...#ixzz0ogR63iDW

[Patrick]

How many people will apply for these jobs? 15,000? How do they pick the best candidates?

[terryh]

Good news! This is what we should get excited about....historical buildings housing startup coffee houses is a good thing....but if factories, small and large can start hiring workers who can afford to support the small businesses in the city, and fill the lofts, and create a demand for more and better public and private transportation..etc. so on and so forth....

[n7hn]

slow down there terry........ LOL

[DetroitDad]

Great news!

[Patrick]

I have heard a few people bitch that the jobs ONLY pay $14 an hour. Is entitlement still an issue in Detroit after what the industry has been through?

[DetroitZack]

How many people will apply for these jobs? 15,000? How do they pick the best candidates?

As the Detroit News article says they aren't accepting applications. They have enough already to fill these jobs.

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

At least in Detroit, someone making $14.00 an hour can buy a house.

[Patrick]

At least in Detroit, someone making $14.00 an hour can buy a house.

It is a good living considering a house can be had for $17,000.

[Bobl]

I would accept that job, at $14.00 per hour, today. Never would have believed that I, and others like me, would. The paradigm has shifted. We need jobs.

[37DOGG9]

Something seems funny here? Chrysler went bankrupt, vehicle sales plummeted and there were no layoffs? Seems like many workers were off on layoff here. I don't understand this article,but hope for more auto and manufacturing jobs to be added here in good old Michigan and to the USA!

[Ltdave]

Chrysler went bankrupt, vehicle sales plummeted and there were no layoffs? Seems like many workers were off on layoff here.

when we went bankrupt, there were already only about 23,000 employees. when i started there in 1994 we had over 72,000...

theyve been offering buy outs and early retirements since 2005 or 2006...

there are a lot of skilled tradesmen [[toolmakers, millwrights, electricians, pipefitters etc who have had 8,000 hours of training) working production jobs. there are NO jobs banks anymore and weve gotten diemakers at my plant that were laid off from some of the stamping plants...