Laid off when Stellantis idled the Belvidere Assembly Plant in Illinois in February, nearly 165 workers were back on the job this week as the automaker’s first hires for a new parts distribution center, part of a broader plan to restart a facility that once employed thousands.
About 115 of the workers are already processing parts at a warehouse near the auto plant, while another 50 are completing training at the Stellantis parts distribution center in Naperville before joining their colleagues in Belvidere next week, the automaker said.
“It has always been our goal to find full-time employment opportunities for the Belvidere workforce,” Mark Stewart, Stellantis North America COO, said in a news release Thursday. “This is a great first step in our plans to restore operations in this community and provide meaningful, high-paying jobs with excellent benefits for those who are still on layoff and, eventually, for many who want to return home.”
Stellantis laid off the last 1,200 workers at the plant after halting production of the Jeep Cherokee amid dwindling sales 10 months ago. As part of a new labor agreement with the United Auto Workers, Stellantis committed to investing nearly $5 billion to retool the plant for production of a new midsize truck, build an adjacent electric vehicle battery plant and create a “megahub” parts distribution center.
The UAW ratified four-year labor agreements with Stellantis, General Motors and Ford in November following a six-week strike against the Big Three automakers.
The agreement with Stellantis includes a 25% increase in base wages, cost of living adjustments and the right to strike over plant closures, mirroring similar deals struck by Ford and General Motors. But the Stellantis agreement made restarting the 60-year-old plant a centerpiece of negotiations, with the promise of hiring back thousands of workers to Belvidere.
While the assembly and battery plants have yet to break ground, Stellantis reached out to the laid-off assembly workers several weeks ago to fill 270 parts distribution jobs, according to Matt Frantzen, head of UAW Local 1268 in Belvidere.
“It’s a good opportunity for them,” Frantzen said. “They can get in, build up some money and then some weeks’ work toward next year’s vacation allotment.”
The UAW agreement eliminated the wage tier between assembly and parts distribution workers, meaning the former Belvidere plant employees will actually make more money picking and packing parts than they did building cars under the new deal, Frantzen said.
Stellantis will invest $100 million to create the megahub parts distribution center at Belvidere through the consolidation of facilities in Chicago, Milwaukee and Marysville, Michigan. The 30-year-old Stellantis parts distribution center in Naperville will be closed and its operations folded into the new facility.
The plan for Belvidere also includes investing $1.5 billion in the idled auto plant to build up to 100,000 units of an all-new midsize truck beginning in 2027, which could put about 2,500 workers on the assembly line, according to the UAW.
In addition, Stellantis will invest $3.2 billion in an adjacent EV battery plant that will create a projected 1,300 jobs, according to the UAW. The plant is slated to launch in 2028 as a joint venture with a business partner yet to be identified.
The state put together a number of incentive packages to get Stellantis to bring production back to Belvidere, details of which have yet to be released.
“The elements of the incentive package are still being finalized,” said Eliza Glezer,a spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.
In November, President Joe Biden came to Belvidere to celebrate the restarting of the idled Stellantis plant and tout his role in supporting the UAW during the strike negotiations. He called the plant the “beating heart” of Belvidere.
The auto plant has certainly been the economic engine of the small river city near Rockford for nearly six decades.
The Belvidere plant opened under the Chrysler banner in 1965, with a white Plymouth Fury II sedan the first vehicle to roll off the line. Over the years, the plant was retooled several times, and made everything from the Dodge Neon to the Chrysler New Yorker. Italian automaker Fiat acquired a majority stake in Chrysler in 2009, and completed the acquisition in 2014, breathing new life into the plant and the community.
In 2017, Belvidere became the exclusive home for the Jeep Cherokee, with more than 5,000 workers on three shifts building the SUV at its peak. But demand for the plant’s sole product waned, and downsizing accelerated under new owner Stellantis, which was formed by the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Peugeot of France in January 2021.
Stellantis “indefinitely” idled the plant and laid off the last 1,200 workers in February. More than 1,000 remain in town, Frantzen said, meaning about 730 are still waiting for their opportunity to get back to work.
While Frantzen welcomed the first hires for the parts distribution center, there is still a long way to go before the dormant auto plant once again becomes the nexus of economic activity in Boone County.
“It still won’t feel comfortable until I see movement here,” Franzten said. “Somewhere in one of these farmer’s fields, moving dirt and pouring concrete for the new facilities.”
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