Janesville Assembly Plant is an automobile factory owned by General Motors located in Janesville, Wisconsin. Opened in 1919, it is the oldest-operating GM plant.
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The factory was originally built to produce Samson tractors. These failed to find buyers, so GM switched it to producing Chevrolet automobiles in 1923. It has produced automobiles and pickup trucks over the years, but most recently built full-size SUVs.[1]
Production at the factory was halted during the Great Depression for a short time and there was a famous sit-down strike in 1937. The Janesville Assembly also produced artillery during World War II.[1]
The Janesville Assembly was until recently one of three plants producing the GMT900 trucks, such as the Chevrolet Suburban, and began building the next-generation short-wheelbase GMT900 trucks in January 2006. It began producing long wheelbase GMT900 trucks in March of that year and an overtime shift was added to meet demand.
From 1994 until 2009, the plant also produced medium-duty trucks for Isuzu under its partnership with GM.[2]
The plant covers 4,800,000 ft³ (446,000 m³).[3] It employed around 7,000 workers at its peak in 1970, but was down to about 1,200 at its closing in 2009.[4]
Fuel prices, the related slow sales of SUVs, and the economy affected the Janesville plant. In April 2008, GM announced that the plant would cut back full-time production to a single shift. Combined with an ongoing employee buy-out program, layoffs totaled around 750 jobs in July 2008.[5]
During GM's 2008 annual shareholder meeting on June 3, 2008, CEO Rick Wagoner announced that the Janesville assembly plant would close by 2010, along with three other GM factories, and could close sooner if the market dictated.[6] The cutbacks announced, along with other changes, were expected to save the North American division $1 billion per year starting in 2010.[7]
GM extended its annual summer shutdown an additional two weeks and planned another ten weeks of shutdown for the remainder of 2008 because of excess inventories of SUVs made at the plant.[8]
In June 2008, a study by Steven Deller, a University of Wisconsin-Extension professor, indicated that the plant's closure could result in a ripple effect for the county. Based on a number of estimates and 2007 employment data, his worst case scenario was the loss of 9,000 jobs and nearly half a billion dollars of labor income in Rock County.[9]
In October 2008, GM announced Janesville Assembly would be largely idled December 23, 2008 when production of SUVs would end.[10] A skeleton crew continued to work at Janesville Assembly through June, 2009, completing the Janesville/Isuzu light truck contract.
On January 13, 2010 GM put Janesville Assembly on stand-by to produce new vehicles due to recent increase in demand for GM vehicles.
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