Dana to close 10 factories
7/11/08
Source: http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081107/BIZ/811070382
Plummeting auto sales continue to take a toll on auto parts supplier Dana Holding Corp.
The company, which employs 430 in an axle plant in Fort Wayne, announced Thursday that it would shut 10 plants by the end of 2010 and cut 5,000 workers this year. That was 2,000 more than the 3,000 announced earlier in the year.
There was no word Thursday on whether Dana’s Fort Wayne plant would be among those to be closed or whether its employees would be laid off.
“There is no list at this point,” corporate communications director Chuck Hartlage said. “We’ll be meeting with our union partners to make decisions about that.”
Representatives of the union that represents Fort Wayne Dana workers, United Steel Workers Local 903, couldn’t be reached Thursday for comment.
At its Fort Wayne plant, Dana makes light axles used in pickups and sport utility vehicles made by Chrysler Corp., Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp.
The auto companies this week said their sales for October were their worst in decades.
Hartlage blamed the bad auto sales for parts orders that have been falling “quickly and dramatically.”
Both GM and Ford are scheduled to release third-quarter results this morning. Both companies have said that factory production must reflect declining sales, which means job cuts.
According to Ford’s top sales analyst and two people briefed on GM’s plans, neither automaker is planning to announce factory closures, although both are likely to cut production by eliminating shifts and imposing overtime bans or temporary plant shutdowns.
The people did not want to be identified because GM’s plans are confidential.
Toledo-based Dana announced the closures and job cuts as it released its third-quarter earnings.
Its sales were $1.93 billion, a 9 percent decrease from $2.13 billion in the same period in 2007.
Dana’s net loss for the three months ended Sept. 30 was $271 million. It lost $69 million during the same period in 2007.
That equates to a loss of $2.79 a share, compared with 46 cents a share in the year-earlier period.
Dana emerged in January after almost two years in bankruptcy.
