GM to keep Mich. plant open extra 7 months despite idling plans

Feb. 22 (UPI) -- About three months after General Motors announced it would indefinitely idle an assembly plant in Michigan, the U.S. automaker said Friday it would keep the site open -- for now.

The Detroit-Hamtramck plant, a facility near downtown Detroit, will stay open at least until January 2020, General Motors said in a Detroit Free Press report. The facility will remain open to produce the Cadillac CT6 and Chevrolet Impala, GM said.

Until recently, Detroit-Hamtramck also produced the Chevy Volt hybrid and Buick LaCrosse sedan. The facility was one of five in the U.S. and Canada that GM said in November it would idle in an effort to save $6 billion by 2020.

The decision drew ire from President Donald Trump, who said at the time, "This country has done a lot for General Motors."

Under those original plans, the Detroit-Hamtramck plant would have idled in June. But Friday's announcement will keep about 700 hourly and 75 salaried employees at work.

The UAW labor union, which represents autoworkers at the Detroit-Hamtramck plant, praised GM's decision to keep the plant temporarily open.

"For the UAW brothers and sisters at Hamtramck, today is a sense of relief for their families and the community," the union said in a statement. "The UAW welcomes today's announcement that Hamtramck production will continue."

Another 586 workers at the plant have already been transferred to another facility in Flint, Mich., GM spokesman Dan Flores told the Free Press.