Dana Corp. in Cape plans to add 50 jobs

Union talk subsides after other Dana closings

Business Today

Six months ago, the Dana plant in Cape Girardeau was facing the possibility of being closed -- the Toledo, Ohio-based parent company was looking to eliminate 11,250 jobs across the country.

While other Dana plants in the Midwest are being closed or seeing large layoffs, the local manufacturer of automobile axle components is doing well.

The $23 million plant plans to add 50 more jobs by the end of the year, bringing the total to 380.

Dana, in looking at five Midwestern plants, has decided to close the plant in Greensboro, N.C., and is likely to close the plant in Jonesboro, Ark., if it can't find a buyer, said plant manager Larry Dillon.

Two plants in Indiana are seeing huge layoffs -- a plant in Syracuse is being downsized from 377 people to 100 and the Fort Wayne plant will be cut from 1,150 to 800 workers. Dillon said all of the changes are expected to take effect by the end of the year.

Gary Corrigan, the vice president of Dana's corporate communications in Toledo, said the Cape Girardeau plant was spared because all but one of its lines -- which make carrier housings, differential cases and ring and pinion gear sets for axles -- are considered core products by the company.

Dillon said the plant workers also helped save their jobs by increasing productivity by 12 percent over the past year.

Initial discussions of Dana plant closings coincided with union talk among some Cape Girardeau workers. That's something managers and other workers thought might make the plant a stronger candidate for closing.

"Any union talk out here was certainly a negative factor," Dillon said. "It was a huge factor in Fort Wayne and Syracuse. Those are union, and now they're being cut back." But Dillon said lately union talk has died down.

"I haven't heard anything about it in a while," he said.

Dillon said the additional employees will be added because the Dana plant will have the Ford Ranger line relocated from Greensboro, and there's a new Nissan program to be implemented at the plant by the end of the year.