Not Studebaker, but auto related!

"Something always comes up to save us, but I think this time it's different," she said. "With the Germans owning us now, I don't think the American spirit is behind us.":

AP Chrysler Workers Fear Restructuring Monday February 12, 6:43 pm ET By Tom Krisher, AP Business Writer

Chrysler Workers Dread the Worst in Restructuring Announcement

DETROIT (AP) -- Chrysler workers have taken to calling it the "Valentine's Day massacre." They are referring to Wednesday's restructuring announcement from Chrysler, one that some analysts say could cost 10,000 production workers their jobs.

As workers await the news, rumors fly: Two plants to be shut down; buyout or early retirement offers similar to what Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. did to reduce their hourly work forces; flat-out layoffs.

"We hear they're going to call it the Valentine's Day massacre," said Steve Laube on Monday, as he and other laid-off workers reported to "jobs bank" duty, for which they'll get most of their pay to perform community service work or sometimes just hang around the union hall.

At 49, Laube has eight years in as an electrician at DaimlerChrysler AG's Jefferson North Assembly Plant in Detroit, but he's so low on the seniority list that he was laid off Jan. 1 due to slumping demand for the plant's Jeep Cherokees and Commanders.

"They don't clue us into anything," he said. "You just hear rumors, rumors, rumors."

Analysts predict another 1,000 to 1,500 salaried workers also could lose their jobs as Chrysler Group joins its two domestic rivals in trying to downsize factory capacity to match lower demand for its products.

Much of the shrinkage, analysts believe, will come at plants that make truck-based products, victims of the change in consumer tastes from sport utility vehicles and trucks to more fuel efficient car-based vehicles.

Chrysler lost $1.5 billion in the third quarter of 2006, and its sales were down 7 percent last year. Trucks and bigger SUVs historically account for about 70 percent of the company's U.S. sales, more than any other manufacturer.

Kevin Reale, an industry analyst for AMR Research Inc., said Chrysler probably has 15 percent too much manufacturing capacity.

"They'll have to trim out some assembly facilities to bring their capacity to produce vehicles in line with demand," he said.

Atop almost everyone's list for closure is the 2,100-worker plant in Newark, Del., that assembles the slow-selling Dodge Durango and Chrysler Aspen mid-sized SUVs. Analysts say the Mack Avenue Engine Plant 1 in Detroit, with about 530 employees, also is a possibility because it makes the 4.7-liter V-8 engines that go in slow-selling trucks.

Erich Merkle, an industry analyst with the auto consulting company IRN Inc. in Grand Rapids, said a 2,330-worker plant near St. Louis in Fenton, Mo., that makes Ram pickups also is on his list because Chrysler has two other plants that make the Ram.

Chrysler won't say which plants are on the blocks. It says details will be released Wednesday morning in tandem with the company's 2006 earnings.

But most vulnerable are plants that make the mid-sized SUVs, which have fallen out of favor with buyers, said Catherine Madden, an auto industry analyst at the consulting company Global Insight Inc.

The Durango and Aspen underpinnings are exclusive to those vehicles, contrary to Chrysler's movement toward more flexible manufacturing plants that can build multiple vehicles on one platform, she said.

"Chrysler was very traditional on where they were in truck segments, a single platform with a single model with it. It's just not competitive from a manufacturing perspective," she said.

With Durango sales down nearly 39 percent last year compared to 2005, Robbyn Taylor-Higgs, 50, a 27-year veteran of the Newark plant, is well aware that closing is possible. Talk among the work force is that it will either move to one shift by March 5 or shut down.

"We're all on pins and needles right now," she said. "It is scary."

She's been around long enough to remember the government bailout engineered by Lee Iacocca and other tough times, but believes this is more serious.

"Something always comes up to save us, but I think this time it's different," she said. "With the Germans owning us now, I don't think the American spirit is behind us."

Taylor-Higgs, a repair technician on the trim line, believes her seniority will help see her through, but is concerned about her son Tim, 31, a frame line worker who has only eight years at the plant.

Already politicians in Delaware are preparing for the worst.

Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., drew parallels between the Newark plant now and GM's decision in the early 1990s to reverse a decision to close a plant near Wilmington, Del., that now produces the popular Pontiac Solstice sports coupe.

"We didn't take no for an answer then," said Carper, who had just been elected governor when GM announced plans in 1992 to close the plant.

Carper said the state's leaders aggressively lobbied GM, highlighting the plant's top-flight work force, quality and strong record between labor and management.

The Newark plant, he said, has been on the closing bubble in the past.

"We've seen this movie before and we take it very seriously, as we always do," he said. "The key here is to try to find a way to make DaimlerChrysler profitable again."

Carper said he spoke with LaSorda on Friday but declined to discuss details.

Merkle said he can't imagine the United Auto Workers union agreeing to layoffs without buyouts similar to those made by Ford and GM.

No matter what closes, workers who are low in seniority could be bumped from their jobs by more senior workers from other plants.

That's what troubled Laube Monday as he and others waited at the union hall for details on an assignment to build a wheelchair ramp for a doctor's office.

"I'm just trying to see what this is going to bring about," said Laube, father of two children. "If it's not good, I'm going to have to figure out something else."

Associated Press writers Randall Chase in Dover, Del., and Ken Thomas in Washington contributed to this story.

Reuters DWS says Chrysler spin-off should remain option: paper Sunday February 11, 12:14 pm ET

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - DaimlerChrysler (XETRA:DCXGN.DE - News; NYSE:DCX - News) shareholder DWS has called on the carmaker's management to consider a spin-off of the firm's ailing U.S. Chrysler unit as an option as it gets ready to unveil its latest restructuring plan for Chrysler, a German newspaper reported. "This needs to be an option that must be examined again and again" DWS fund manager Henning Gebhardt told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung in remarks published on Sunday.

He added that it was questionable whether Chrysler would become successful in the medium term.

"BMW (XETRA:BMWG.DE - News) also separated Rover. It would be irresponsible for (Daimler) management to exclude this option," Gebhardt added.

DWS, Germany's largest fund company, owns about 0.85 percent of DaimlerChrysler shares, according to Reuters data.

DaimlerChrysler unveils its latest restructuring plan for Chrysler on Wednesday, almost six years after its first attempt at shoring up profits from across the Atlantic.

Analysts expect the world's fifth-biggest carmaker to cut thousands of jobs and close two North American plants at Chrysler, which Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche ran until taking the top spot in Stuttgart at the start of last year.

A complete spin-off of Chrysler, as suggested by some disgruntled German shareholders, seems to some to be off the table.

"Management commitment to restructuring may cast doubt on an imminent disposal, which has supported the stock," analyst Stephen Cheetham at Sanford Bernstein wrote in a recent report.