*This story has been updated
GM announced today that it will extend production at its Detroit Hamtramck plant for through January 2020. The plant had been slated for closure in June 2019, along with three others in the United States and one in Canada.
GM notified employees, suppliers and dealers today that the plant would extend completion of the Chevrolet Impala and Cadillac CT6 through January.
“We are balancing production timing while continuing the availability of Cadillac advanced technology features currently included in the CT6-V, the Blackwing Twin Turbo V-I and Super Cruise,” the statement said.
GM spokeswoman Kimberly Carpenter said the Hamtramck plant "remains unallocated," meaning that beyond January, there are no plans in place to continue production there.
The United Autoworkers Union, which represents workers at the plant, said it "welcomed" the announcement. “For the UAW brothers and sisters at Hamtramck, today is a sense of relief for their families and the community,” UAW President Gary Jones and Vice President Terry Dittes said in a statement.
The statement went on to say that the UAW “will leave no stone unturned” in its attempts to keep three other plants scheduled to close—GM Warren Transmission Operations, GM Lordstown Assembly and in the GM GPS Baltimore plant in Maryland—in operation.
“On behalf of UAW members at Hamtramck and throughout the UAW, we want to thank the tens of thousands of people who have supported our members in these trying weeks,” they added. “And we ask your continued support for workers in our three other facilities as we strive to find a solution to continued production in those locations. Again, we commend GM for today’s decision and we reiterate the importance of a collective bargaining process in times like these.”
GM added a second shift and more than 1,200 jobs at Hamtramck in 2015, increasing its workforce to 2,800 for its agile production line and added production of the Cadillac CT6 in 2016. GM invested $1 billion in the plant from 2009 to 2015, including $449 million for the production for the plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt. GM announced in November 2018 it would be discontinuing the Volt.
