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GM-UAW Strike Delays C8 Corvette Start Of Production

The United Auto Works and General Motors are battling these days over labor matters, and on Sunday, vice president Terry Dittes told members that things have taken a turn for the worse. General Motors is also affected by these circumstances, pushing back the start of production for the C8 Corvette.
C8 Corvette 61 photos
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It’s been more than 20 days since the start of the strike, and the Bowling Green factory in Kentucky is struggling to fulfill orders for the C7 Corvette. Speaking to The Detroit Free Press, a person familiar with the operations made it clear that the strike “is directly going to affect the start of production” because the plant must undergo a tooling upgrade before the eighth generation starts rolling out.

The strike also has an impact on the engine plant in Ramos Arizpe, impacting 415 of the 2,100 employees tasked with building powerplants. The Silao factory in charge of the 2020 Silverado and GMC Sierra is temporarily shut down, and the CAMI plant in Ontario is throttling back to regular production after a week of scheduled downtime. From crossovers to pickup trucks and even mid-engined sports cars, the strike isn’t good for either party involved in the matter.

"They were supposed to start production in the first part of December and that's still a ways away," said Tommy Brasher, owner of a Chevrolet dealer in Weimar, Texas. If push comes to shove, then the C8 coupe will be pushed back to the first quarter of 2020. A few months later, General Motors plans to launch the convertible.

The Bowling Green Assembly Plant was supposed to come to a grinding halt this week to prepare for retooling on Monday the 14th of October. General Motors still has a lot to address before the UAW stops the strike, and knowing how greedy the higher-ups are in this ultra-competitive market, the end is nowhere in sight.

A new contract proposal was forwarded to the UAW on Monday morning, but the union’s demands haven’t been fulfilled. The people responsible for the interests of the workers demand General Motors to build traditional vehicles in the United States as opposed to EVs and self-driving cars.

This scenario, which is inevitable going forward, translates to fewer union jobs. More to the point, EVs and autonomous vehicles don’t take as many parts or as much manpower to assemble.
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About the author: Mircea Panait
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After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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