General Motors Corp. plans to close its assembly and stamping plants in Shreveport, La., no later than June 2012, a union official said Wednesday.

Doug Ebey, the president of United Auto Workers Local 2166, said the company filed documents late Tuesday in bankruptcy court saying that the plants, which employ 950 people, are "not going to be part of the new General Motors when it emerges from bankruptcy."

Ebey said the plants could close sooner, depending upon market demand for GM vehicles. In the meantime, the plants will continue to put together the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon pickup trucks, along with the Hummer H3 and H3T pickup truck.

It had been widely hoped that the operation would continue after it escaped an initial plant closure list when GM filed for bankruptcy protection on June 1. But Ebey said the union had been "hearing rumblings for some time."

"That was a big shock to us," he said of GM's court filing.

The plants are currently idle as part of a systemwide GM production cutback.

Following $1.5 billion in investments in recent years, the Shreveport assembly plant was considered one of the company's most modern — but its products wound up on the short end of skyrocketing gasoline prices last year, followed by the economic meltdown in October and the company's free-fall.

The pickups and the Hummers fell out of favor with consumers as fuel prices rose.

The plants once employed about 3,000 people, making GM one of Louisiana's largest manufacturing employers but were down to one shift — with frequent production shutdowns as inventory piled up on dealers' lots.

GM has tentatively agreed to sell the commercial Hummer brand to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. during the third quarter. A Hummer spokesman earlier said that the buyer had planned to move the annual production of about 10,000 Hummers from South Africa to Shreveport.

Ebey said Wednesday that the future of Hummer production at the plant was unknown.

For Carey Mincey, a 23-year GM worker, it would be his third plant closure. Mincey, an electrician at the assembly plant, said he previously was displaced by GM closures in Terrytown, N.Y., in 1996 and Tuscaloosa, Ala., in 2002. He said he needed seven more years for full retirement.

"I was really hoping we'd make it," Mincey said. "I've been a GM gypsy. Hopefully, there will be another place for them to send me."

State Rep. Wayne Waddell, R-Shreveport, said the announcement wasn't a surprise to him.

"I was very concerned about that plant, had been for quite a while. And 2012, that'll get here quick," Waddell said.

Waddell said there is some chance that trained former GM workers in Shreveport might commute or move to Monroe, if and when a new auto plant being planned by a startup company opens there.

San Diego-based V-Vehicle Co. has won state financial incentives and is seeking further funding to use the now-vacant Guide Corp. plant in Monroe — which once made vehicle headlights — into an assembly plant for a next-generation, fuel-efficient car. The plant would have a payroll of 1,400 at an average salary of $40,000, officials said.

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AP writer Doug Simpson in Baton Rouge, La., contributed to this report.
   
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

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