Assembly Line

Negotiators for the General Motors Corp.'s minivan plant in Southeast Baltimore and representatives of the United Auto Workers Union are scheduled to return to the bargaining table this morning in hopes of ending a walkout affecting about 3,200 GM assembly-line workers and many other factory employees around the state who make products used to build the vehicles.At 10 a.m. yesterday, a union official blew a whistle, marking the deadline for a settlement of a dispute primarily over safety at the Broening Highway plant.

WHITE MARSH -- Both General Motors Corp. and its workers saw the minting of the Allison Transmission plant's first hybrid transmission yesterday as much more than just a new product. It is a lifeline for both. The nation's largest automaker is producing the industry's first hybrid transmission for light trucks here in a bid to regain market share from foreign competitors such as Toyota Motor Corp. If it is a success, GM plans to expand the product line, which could mean new jobs at the plant.

A new techno-thriller by Michael Crichton is always a supercharged commercial publishing event in the American book industry. Along with a tiny handful of others -- mostly women who also manufacture trademark-formula fiction forms with the clockwork of Henry Ford's first assembly line -- Crichton cranks out guaranteed megasellers.The latest Crichton was launched last week with full-page newspaper ads and the squealing of hundreds of 18-wheelers' tires: The publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, puffed that the first hardcover printing is 1.5 million copies.

The assembly line at General Motor Corp.'s sprawling assembly plant in Southeast Baltimore will spring to life tomorrow as workers begin cranking out the first of the 1998 models of the Chevrolet Astro and GMC Safari vans.It will mark the plant's 14th year of van production and the 62nd year of operation for the aging factory that opened in 1935 as a builder of Chevrolet Deluxe sedans.It's unclear how much longer GM's relationship with Baltimore will last. But there are new signs that the city's largest manufacturing employer, with 3,200 workers, could be a part of the GM family for a long time.

A jolly green chameleon pops up on the screen and gobbles up the letters "a-s-d-f" as fast as the autoworker named Alfred can peck them into his computer."

Earl Lemon, 57, GM assembly line workerEarl Lemon, who worked on the assembly line at the General Motors Corp. plant in Baltimore for more than 25 years, died of cancer Saturday at his West Baltimore home. He was 57.The native of Summerton, S.C., came to Baltimore in 1957 and worked at a men's clothing manufacturer. He started working for GM in 1969.He was an active member of Jones Tabernacle Baptist Church, 2100 W. Baltimore St., where services will be held at 11 a.m. today.Survivors include his wife, the former Jo Ann Jefferson, whom he married in 1963; four sons, Clyde Mack of Manning, S.C., and Charles Lemon, Darnell Black and Durrell Lemon, all of Baltimore; three daughters, Donna Dixon, Shena Lemon and Lori Oswald, all of Baltimore; his mother, Corine Saunders of Baltimore; three sisters, Delores Jackson of Baltimore, and Sara Saunders and Hester Johnson, both of Waldorf; and 12 grandchildren.

While Charles R. Alfred may be looking to 1998 and beyond as he seeks to secure the long-term future of the General Motors Corp. assembly plant in Baltimore, the UAW Local 239 president is also keeping a close eye on the calendar this week.With the expiration Saturday of the local's contract with the Southeast Baltimore van assembly plant looming, Alfred said much still needs to be accomplished before a new pact is ready for rank-and-file approval."Negotiations are pretty much at a standstill," Alfred said late last week.

KRAGUJEVAC, Yugoslavia -- Remember the Yugo?Down at the Zastava Group factory, a skeleton work crew of fewer than 1,200 struggles to keep the cheap and cheerless little auto alive.In 1989, before Yugoslavia disintegrated and went to war, the factory churned out 200,000 of these cars.They broke down so often, they gave Yugoslav workmanship a bad reputation in the United States.This year, the workers will be lucky to produce 8,000.The story of the Yugo and the Zastava Group is the story of Yugoslavia's economy, shattered by war and 3 1/2 years of United Nations-imposed trade sanctions that were lifted only last winter.

On the road from Baltimore to New Windsor yesterday, juniors and seniors from several city high schools reviewed their production strategy, preparing for another community service day at Brethren Service Center.After carefully unpacking 650 wind chimes Wednesday, they had all the assembly line experience they needed. The students have been volunteering since Wednesday and will continue until today.Within a few hours of their arrival yesterday, six students and two teachers had unloaded, unwrapped, priced and repackaged 1,236 hand-carved wooden boxes from India.

General Motors Corp.'s van assembly plant in Southeast Baltimore stopped production at 4:42 yesterday afternoon, the latest victim of the eight-day strike against two brake plants in Dayton, Ohio, that threatens to halt all of GM's North American vehicle production."

Newport, Del. - For 25 years John Lewis has welded, painted and assembled cars at the vast General Motors plant in this town outside Wilmington. This month he's doing none of that. The factory is idle until Dec. 1 because of weak demand for its sporty Pontiac and Saturn roadsters, and its future seems iffy at best. Now he's counting on Congress to approve a $25 billion rescue package for the Big Three automakers - help that once-mighty GM says it needs to ensure survival, help that Lewis says is vital to saving his job and millions of others tied to the nation's auto industry.

They had known the end was coming, but suddenly it's a lot closer for Allan Parker and 250 fellow Cecil County residents who work at the Chrysler SUV plant in Newark, Del. Instead of shutting down the plant in late 2009 as scheduled, the reeling company announced last month that it will turn out the lights Dec. 17. "A real nice Christmas present," said Parker, 53, who started at the plant 28 years ago and lives in North East. "I can't imagine the timing being any worse." With the U.S. auto industry on its back, thousands of autoworkers across the country face losing their high-paying jobs in a grim economy.

WHITE MARSH -- Both General Motors Corp. and its workers saw the minting of the Allison Transmission plant's first hybrid transmission yesterday as much more than just a new product. It is a lifeline for both. The nation's largest automaker is producing the industry's first hybrid transmission for light trucks here in a bid to regain market share from foreign competitors such as Toyota Motor Corp. If it is a success, GM plans to expand the product line, which could mean new jobs at the plant.

NEWTON, Iowa -- Soon the only items coming out of Newton bearing the Maytag name will be the blue cheese made famous at the farms created by the appliance giant's founding family. Before October ends, the final few hundred washer-dryer assembly workers at the immense Plant 2 at Maytag Corp.'s world headquarters will clock out and get their last paychecks, shuttering an operation that had employed as many as 2,600 workers five years ago. It will be one more step in the $2.6 billion acquisition and consolidation begun last year by rival appliance-maker Whirlpool Corp.

As the rising sun bathed the Chesapeake Bay, a 110-ton crane sat poised over a wheeled chassis holding part of a house. Slowly a 14-by-36-foot module swung into the air, its four oversized French doors glittering in the light. Suspended from four cables, it dangled for a time before being lowered onto the foundation of what would become a luxury waterfront home by day's end. By 11:15 a.m., the first floor was nearly done. Warily, workers, builders and a small crowd of onlookers eyed thickening clouds on a day that had been forecast to be clear.

One of the obvious changes in Hagerstown these days is a factory water tower that can be seen from nearby Interstate 81. After 44 years, it no longer has a "Mack Powertrain" sign on the side. The new paint says, "Volvo Powertrain." The name reflects changes at the plant, which has made Mack Trucks engines and transmissions since 1961. Now, the plant is also producing engines for sister company Volvo. They are the first Volvo truck engines ever made in the United States. AB Volvo of Sweden, parent of Mack of Allentown, Pa., is spending $150 million through 2008 to renovate the enormous plant.

Lorraine Redd Evans, who spent 30 years working on the assembly line at the former General Electric plant in Columbia, died of cancer Tuesday at Maryland General Hospital. She was 79 and lived in West Baltimore. Lorraine Redd was born in Baltimore, where she attended public school. She married B.J. Williams of Baltimore at age 16 before he left for military service during World War II. "In those days, young girls would marry servicemen not knowing whether they'd come back," said her sister Ersell Pryor of Baltimore.

Workers at General Motors' Baltimore plant finished making the last van on the 70-year-old assembly line yesterday, joining another piece of the city's blue-collar past and taking their spot in the financially troubled carmaker's history. The last van rolled off the line at 11:05 a.m. as workers and retirees gathered to watch what they knew had been coming for years. GM decided last year to close the plant yesterday, leaving 1,100 workers without jobs. But when the line stopped, it still weighed heavily on workers.

Longpoint Road is a quiet street of bungalows, some with carports, on a peninsula that reaches to Dundalk's Bear Creek. It's a place where families have for years gathered for cookouts, where John Eltringham would lend his electric cement mixer to a neighbor. It's also just a 10-minute drive from Baltimore's General Motors plant - where people such as Eltringham made a living. With the plant set to shut down today after seven decades of production, Longpoint Road offers a look at how the ups and downs of a major industrial employer can be reflected in the past, present and future of one suburban block.

Richard A. Johnson Sr., a retired General Motors Corp. assembly line worker who collected automobiles, died of cancer Sept. 10 at his East Oliver Street home. He was 58. Mr. Johnson was born and raised in Baltimore and graduated in 1965 from Douglass High School. He went to work at GM's Broening Highway plant that year, and was an assembly line worker until retiring in 1990. Mr. Johnson enjoyed collecting and driving BMW and Jaguar autos, said a daughter, Terri Johnson of Baltimore. He also was an accomplished carpenter, and liked fishing and going to flea markets.