St. Louis DCX plant pays OT

Auto news

Extra hours produce slow-selling vans

FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER | BY KATIE MERX | Detroit - -

Like their coworkers in Windsor andDetroit, hourly workers at the Chrysler Group's St. Louis South Assembly plant said they don't understand why the automaker scheduled them to work overtime on Saturday.

St. Louis South employs about 3,200 workers and builds the company's Chrysler Town & Country and Dodge Grand Caravan minivans. Sales of both were down in October, compared with a year ago, and for the first 10 months of the year.

Workers said they don't think they should be working overtime to build minivans because plenty are in inventory, they haven't been selling quickly and the automaker blamed a $1.5-billion third-quarter loss on unexpectedly slow sales of its minivans, SUVs and pickups.

The Power Information Network reports that the Grand Caravans that sold in October sat on dealer lots an average of 133 days -- about 4 1/2 months -- before they were bought. Town & Country minivans averaged 117 days.

Chrysler has said production schedules are not based solely on the prior month's demand. Anticipated demand, line rates and other factors also play a part, the company said.

Chrysler acknowledged last week that workers at the Jefferson North Assembly Plant in Detroit and across the river in Windsor worked overtime to build its slow-selling large Jeep SUVs as well as minivans and the Chrysler Pacifica.

A spokesman said the company mistakenly left St. Louis South off the publicly distributed list of plants that would be working overtime on the weekend because it was a "late addition to the production plans."