ANDERSON, Ind. (AP) — Hundreds of workers from Anderson's closed Guide Corp. plant could soon be leaving the area for jobs at General Motors factories across the country.
Union officials estimate about 400 people who worked at the Guide plant before it closed last year are eligible for positions at GM factories, such as an assembly plant in Kansas that has 300 openings.
Former Guide employees have been told by letter that they must apply by Friday if they are interested in jobs at the Fairfax, Kan., plant.
Steve Ewell, 25, of Alexandria, said he had already submitted his application and hoped that he would be starting at the Kansas factory within two months.
''There are a lot of people planning to do this,'' Ewell told The Herald Bulletin for a story Sunday.
That could mean a mass exodus of auto workers from Madison County, where the automotive industry once employed about 27,000 people.
''For an economic development professional, I hate to lose 400 families in our community,'' said Linda Dawson, Anderson's economic development director. ''It puts us at a disadvantage for our economy.''
But she said she knows many of the former Guide workers will take the GM jobs.
''For the employees, I'm thrilled that they'll get good jobs and benefits,'' she said. ''When we start landing bigger companies, like Nestle, maybe they'll come back.''
Members of the Guide plant's United Auto Workers local, however, believe the former Guide workers should have already been eligible for GM openings ahead of the some 3,000 temporary employees the company has hired in the past year.
Jim Noland, a former UAW Local 663 committeeman, said the Guide workers were wronged when they were passed over in the hiring and that grievances had been filed with the UAW's international office in Detroit.
Noland said he wasn't interested in moving to Kansas and would apply for jobs at GM plants in Fort Wayne, Marion and Indianapolis.
''I should've been hired in Fort Wayne in 2007,'' he said. ''Instead, GM made temporary workers full time. I think it's a good thing to make them full time, but not at the expense of violating seniority.''
