Jeep-maker Stellantis — one of the Big Three automakers — is set to lay off around 2,450 workers later this year at a discontinued Ram 1500 Classic factory outside of Detroit.
“With the introduction of the new Ram 1500, production of the Ram 1500 Classic at the Warren (Michigan) Truck Assembly Plant will come to an end later this year,” a Stellantis spokesperson wrote to The Hill. “As a result, Stellantis announced today that the plant will move from a two-shift to a one-shift operating pattern in General Assembly.”
The company confirmed that layoffs could begin as early as Oct. 8, and that the 2,450 people are likely to be impacted. The company noted that the actual number of impacted employees will likely be lower.
Ram introduced the Ram 1500 in 2018 as a low-cost pickup truck.
The company confirmed that there are about 3,700 workers at the plant and that the laid-off workers will receive 52 weeks of supplemental unemployment benefits paid for by the company, as well as 52 weeks of transition assistance. They will also receive two years of health care coverage.
Stellantis has cut production at several plants amid sales issues and cost-cutting measures. The company, formed in 2021 by merging American Fiat-Chrysler with the French PSA, reported that its profits for the first six months of 2024 fell by nearly $6 billion.
“It is an understatement to say that the first-half 2024 results were disappointing and humbling,” Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares said July 25 on a call with analysts after the earnings report.
“We see that we have fixed the inventory problem of Europe still to be done in the U.S., as we will comment later on,” Tavares added. “This inventory discipline is in the U.S. markets right now, the biggest point of focus. We are working very hard. I am personally involved with our North American teams to fix it.”
Last week, Stellantis offered a new round of voluntary buyouts to U.S. workers, the company’s latest cost-cutting measure.
During the company’s “Investor Day” in June, Tavares also said that weaknesses existed in at least two U.S. factories without explicitly naming them.
United Auto Workers (UAW) President Shawn Fain denounced the layoffs in a statement to NBC, calling Tavares a “disgrace and an embarrassment.”
“Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares is a disgrace and an embarrassment to a once-great American company,” Fain wrote.
“Tavares jacks up his own pay by 56 percent while laying off thousands of autoworkers,” he added. “If any autoworker did as piss poor of a job as Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares, they would be fired.”
The layoffs come a little less than a year after the UAW led a six-week-long strike against the Big Three automakers — including Stellantis, GM and Ford — to rally for better benefits and pay for its workers. The union won a 25-percent pay hike, better retirement benefits and close to $5 billion in investments in factories in the U.S.
The Hill has reached out the UAW for comment.
Updated at 3:22 p.m. EST.
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