Another piece of Cadillac history is gone.

[Pat Caruso CLC #17825]

Wednesday, April 20, 2005  
 
Linden GM plant assembles its last Chevy Blazer
 
By Joe Ryan
Star-Ledger Staff

The final Chevy Blazer rolled off General Motors Linden assembly line and into a wistful crowd of cheering workers this morning, ending production at the last of New Jersey’s auto factories.

“That’s it. There’s goes the end of an era,” said Jim Ward, 55, who worked at the plant for 27 years.

GM, which has reported a $1.1 billion loss in the first three months of 2005, has refused to say the plant is closing. There are no plans, however, to restart the assembly line.
Nearly 1,700 workers, including 750 released in 2002, are permanently laid off by the shut down. Many will have options to work at other GM plants, in Texas, Michigan and Missouri. Others have enough seniority to retire.

Union officials have been working with New Jerseys U.S. Sens. Jon S. Corzine and Frank Lautenberg, hoping to convince GM to maintain a manufacturing presence in New Jersey.

Since opening in 1937 along Routes 1&9, the Linden plant has produced nearly 9 million vehicles, including Chevrolets, Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles and CADILLACS. During World War II, women staffed the assembly line and churned out Wildcat fighter planes.

In 1970, when manufacturing dominated the Garden State, New Jersey boasted nearly 46,000 auto workers. Cars once rolled off assembly lines in Edison, Edgewater, Kearney and Mahwah.

Those plants went silent one by one as the state’s workforce moved from factories to offices. The most recent causality was the Ford Edison plant, which stood 10 miles south of the Linden factory on Route 1, and closed in February 2004.

[George]

Do like I did. Go out buy Combat Flight Sim 2. Download one of the Cadillacs of the sky. And empty the guns into Mitsubishi, Fujisawa and Honda. Its about the only way left. Not politically correct, but deeply satisfying.