FREMONT, Calif. -- About 2,500 workers, all the senior people who escaped earlier cutbacks, will be laid off Friday when the General Motors Corp. Fremont assembly plant shuts down.
The fancy new robots installed last year to help the workers build Chevrolet Celebrity and Pontiac Ciera cars will be laid off along with the people and put into mothballs.
Everyone expects the shutdown to be long if not permanent.
The GM assembly plant, built 19 years ago and enhanced last year with the latest car-building equipment, is turning out cars that few people want to buy.
Of the 35,740 1982 Chevrolet Celebrities built by GM, only 6,698 have been sold. Of the 33,032 new model Pontiac Cieras built, only 9,742 have been sold.
The Fremont plant assembles both models. In the case of the Celebrities, more than half were made there.
One union man says the company could have tried harder.
'Have you ever seen one of these cars? Have you ever seen one of them advertised?' asked John P. Scrempos, of the United Auto Workers local.
'GM management wants it this way,' Scrempos said bitterly. 'They'd rather invest their money in Japan and make higher profits.'
Scrempos and other UAW leaders also blame President Reagan and the federal government for their plight, saying something should have been done about the Japanese auto invasion.
Whoever they blame, and however they explain it, the Fremont GM workers now know that this layoff from the plant is not just an unwelcome vacation. Unemployment is real. They have to find new jobs.
Many of the 4,000 other Fremont GM workers, laid off earlier, are already running out of GM 'supplementary pay' and unemployment benefits.
'More of them are coming here every day,' says Jackie Cochran, an assistant at a special office set up by state and local officials to help GM workers find new jobs.
'They are coming to the realization that they will have to accept less. Other industries aren't able to pay what they have been earning. And they have to learn new skills.'
Many are looking across San Francisco Bay where high-tech computer component firms are still hiring.
But men and women who were getting at least $12 an hour plus fringe benefits at GM are reluctant to take non-union jobs at $4.50 to $7.50 an hour on the bottom rung in a semiconductor factory.
Ms. Cochran said the special employment office, which was set up in October, has helped 300 to 400 persons a month since then. It holds workshops, teaching people how to look for jobs, conducts crash courses on 'self placement,' and provides many leads on jobs. Financial counselors from a local bank are joining the center this week.
'One woman used her benefits to set up a dance studio and is doing very well,' said Ms. Cochran. 'Another man and wife who both worked at GM have set up a sandwich shop. They still have their fingers crossed about whether it is going to fly, but they are enthusiastic.'
The office has desks where unemployed workers can sit down at a telephone and check out opportunities.
Benny Johnson, a 39-year-old production line supervisor who worked at the GM plant for 17 years, was there on Tuesday.
'It boils down to one of two thingsfor me,' he said. 'I can relocate or I can go back to school and get some electronics. The employers say I have the managerial or supervisory skills but don't have the knowledge of that industry.
'I can't get the interview at which I could convince them of my ability.'
Benny Johnson, thinking back on what went wrong, looking at it from the viewpoint of management as well as plant worker, says:
'We just didn't take it seriously enough soon enough. When the small cars started coming in gasoline was still low-priced. We thought we could sell big cars. Then gasoline prices skyrocketed and inflation came on. American workers just can't afford to pay $10,000 for a car. I couldn't afford it.'
