Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 18, 1991                   TAG: 9104180066
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: DETROIT                                LENGTH: Medium

RAIL STRIKE DRIVING U.S. AUTOMAKERS TO CLOSE FACTORIES

Japanese automakers running assembly plants in the United States generally shrugged off the strike, saying it would be days or even weeks before they felt its effect. They generally rely on trucks to transport parts.

Not so for General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Corp., which predicted a virtual production shutdown by week's end.

"We anticipate that approximately 75 to 80 percent of our operations will be affected within the next 24 hours and all plants will be affected by the end of the week," GM spokeswoman Karen Longridge said Wednesday.

GM, the world's largest automaker, operates 184 auto-related factories in the United States, employing about 350,000 hourly and salaried workers.

The Big Three employ about 450,000 active hourly autoworkers in the United States.

The strike could have a much more severe effect than the last nationwide rail walkout in 1982, when only 1,100 auto workers were laid off and 11,800 had reduced work schedules.

That's because automakers today rely on the "just-in-time" delivery system, in which parts and components are delivered to plants shortly before they are needed on assembly lines.

The automakers already are feeling the recession, which has caused a big slump in sales. In the first three months of this year, as orders from dealers dried up, automakers temporarily shut down dozens of assembly plants. In the second week of January, the Big Three laid off nearly 70,000 people at 31 assembly plants.

Wednesday, the automakers polled their assembly and supplier plants to see how much inventory remained on hand and how long the factories could operate after rail-borne supplies are choked off.

"Everything looks like it will be OK today," Ford spokesman Bill Carroll said Wednesday. "But then it's a day-to-day thing. By Friday, we'll really see the effects on the assembly plants."

Chrysler had little to say Wednesday. The financially strapped automaker said Tuesday that a nationwide strike could shut down the entire auto industry, "throwing hundreds of thousands out of work and further jeopardizing the competitive position of American manufacturing."

Nearly all of the Japanese companies with assembly plants in the United States rely mostly on trucks for their incoming parts.

"Most of our parts and supplies now come in from U.S. suppliers, and every one of those come in by truck," said Jim Wiseman, a spokesman for Toyota Motor Manufacturing U.S.A. Inc. in Georgetown, Ky., where Camrys are made.

"As far as the overseas parts, usually when they get off the boat, we'd ship via rail," he added. "But we have sufficient inventory on hand for overseas parts that we should be OK for a couple of weeks."