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DaimlerChrysler to cut 13,000 jobs in US turnaround plan

DaimlerChrysler's plan to cut 13,000 jobs was greeted with shrugs of resignation on Wednesday by auto workers who found the news far too familiar.

Detroit has been devastated by waves of layoffs as the "Big Three" US automakers -- Ford, General Motors and Chrysler -- steadily shed plants as they lost market share to the Japanese.

Wednesday's announcement brings total automotive job cuts in the US to nearly 790,000 since 1999, according to consulting firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas.

It accounts for about 16 percent of the Chrysler unit's total workforce and comes just six years after another turnaround plan eliminated 26,000 jobs and 16 plants.

But the day union leaders dubbed "the St. Valentine's Day Massacre" barely registered among some front-line workers, overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness.

"Basically you've got no control over what they're going to do," said Ed Hill as he got ready to work the second shift at the sprawling Warren truck plant on the outskirts of Detroit.

Another worker said he had not bothered checking the news before he went to work: "I went bowling instead."

Scores of workers at the plant were transferred there when Chrysler shut down a glass factory on the other side of the city in the last round of cutbacks. While the Warren facility is not slated for closure, seniority rules could force out about 1,100 of the people currently working the line.

"We're hoping the buyouts will be big enough that people will take them," said Erika Nimeshein, who also worked the afternoon shift on Wednesday.

Tom LaSorda, Chrysler Group's chief executive, said the company would not employ across-the-board buyouts like GM and Ford did in their latest round of cuts. More than 70,000 Ford and GM employees have now accepted the buyout and early retirement packages.

Instead, the company would concentrate on offering packages in places such as Warren where employees are facing potentially long layoffs, LaSorda said at a press conference.

The announcement of a new turnaround plan only heightened the tension between DaimlerChrysler and the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, which warned that "the company cannot cut its way to profitability."

The UAW criticized the impending cuts but placed most of the blame on US trade policy rather than DaimlerChrysler's management.

"Once again, our nation's ill-conceived trade policies are causing tremendous hardship for working families," UAW president Ron Gettelfinger said in a statement.

Gettelfinger, also a member of the DaimlerChrysler supervisory board, also said that the union would "do everything in our power to hold the company to its commitment to grow the business by developing new products with Mercedes-Benz that are appealing to consumers."
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