Auto Workers protest Chrysler van plant closure
St. Louis Business Journal by Kelsey Volkmann
Date: Wednesday, September 10, 2008, 5:47pm CDT

About 600 union Auto Workers rallied Wednesday afternoon outside Chrysler LLC ’s minivan plant with the hope of stopping the indefinite idling of operations scheduled for Oct. 31.

“This membership has done everything this company has asked us to do,” said Chuck Brodell, a United Auto Workers Local 110 officer, as the rally wrapped up.

“We build a quality van. We made it more efficient and we lowered costs. What more does the company want us to do?”

The St. Louis South plant makes the Dodge Caravan and Chrysler Town & Country minivans, which also are produced at a plant in Windsor, Ontario. The automobile industry has suffered amid rising gas prices that have drivers flocking to more fuel-efficient cars.

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley, and aides of U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-Mo., attended Wednesday’s protest.

“There were 1.6 million vans sold in the U.S. in the last four years versus 240,000 in Canada,” said Brodell, who has worked at the plant for 13 years. “We should be building them in America not in Canada.”

In June, Chrysler LLC revealed its plans to close the St. Louis South assembly plant indefinitely and reduce operations at its St. Louis North assembly plant, also in Fenton, from two shifts to one, affecting a total of 2,400 employees. The shift-cutting at the North assembly plant, which makes Dodge Ram trucks, occurred earlier this month.