Kyle Coppinger's job was hitched to the fate of Chrysler LLC's minivan plant in Fenton — even though he didn't work for the automaker.
For nearly 10 years, Coppinger worked for Integram-St. Louis Seating, a facility in Pacific that built minivan seats for the Chrysler plant.
Then Chrysler cut the minivan plant's second shift at the start of this year, forcing Integram into its own round of layoffs.

Companies and workers like Integram and Coppinger are becoming more common in the St. Louis metropolitan area. Jobs with auto-parts suppliers continue to trickle out of the region as domestic automakers slash production. Some suppliers have adapted, but many have not.

What's left are closures, layoffs and a waning way of life that workers' high-paying jobs used to offer. It's forcing those workers to reconsider their careers in the industry.

In 2005, auto suppliers employed an estimated 4,210 workers locally, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. By last year, that number had dropped to about 2,700.

In that time, suppliers have laid off workers at local factories because of a lack of orders or production cuts at nearby auto assembly plants. Some suppliers also have shut down their operations altogether.

Major U.S. auto suppliers like Southfield, Mich.-based Lear Corp. depend on U.S. automakers, so drops in auto sales mean plant closures, layoffs and other cost-cutting ways, said Kirk Ludtke, who tracks large auto suppliers for CRT Capital Group LLC in Stamford, Conn.
In the most extreme cases, major suppliers like Dana Corp. of Toledo, Ohio, and Delphi Corp. in Troy, Mich., have filed for bankruptcy.
The domestic suppliers industry is "shrinking rapidly, and it will accelerate," said Ludtke, CRT Capital's senior vice president. "It's been under stress for years."

Lear, one of the largest U.S. auto suppliers, has taken double blows locally.

The layoffs and ultimate closure at Ford's Hazelwood assembly plant forced Lear to cut and then close its own Hazelwood operations two years ago. Lear's Hazelwood plant made seats for Ford and employed about 500 people at one point.
In June, Lear told the state it would close its plant in Bridgeton, which made seats for Chrysler's Fenton pickup plant, and lay off 250 workers, according to a Department of Economic Development filing.

 

Lear continues to operate a Wentzville facility, which makes seats for the General Motors Corp.'s van assembly plant.

DIVERSIFICATION

Although it isn't easy, diversification seems like a key to survival.

Within the last five years, Thiel Tool & Engineering Co. in St. Louis lost some business to auto-parts makers based overseas, said Michele Thiel, president and chief executive.

Nearly 90 percent of Thiel's business typically has come from the auto industry. It stamps out parts for auto frames and bodies to the larger suppliers, like Federal-Mogul Corp., which then supply to GM and other automakers.

But Thiel said she's changing that auto skew. The company's auto-parts sales are down 40 percent to 50 percent from a year ago, she said, pushing Thiel to find new customers in other industries. She said the company now makes parts for vending machines and recently signed a deal to make parts for a large "energy conservation" firm, which she declined to name.

The new work has cushioned the fall in auto-parts sales, Thiel said, but September's dismal U.S. auto sales still might trickle down to her company and other auto suppliers.

"We will feel that September slug in December and January and ... I may be forced to do (cost) cuts at that point," Thiel said.

But some suppliers can't quickly adapt when they lose business, so their employees lose their jobs.

"It's a very strict mirror" between the Chrysler minivan plant and its supplier plants, said Darin Gilley, president of UAW Local 1760, which represents workers who make seats, dashboards and door panels for the minivan plant.

Integram and Dakkota Integrated Systems, which makes dashboards and door panels at a plant in west St. Louis County, are just two of Chrysler's suppliers.

In January about 300 union workers at Integram and Dakkota were laid off when minivan production in Fenton fell to one shift, according to Gilley. With the shutdown of the assembly plant later this month, another 350 union members from Local 1760 and about 70 salaried workers will lose their jobs.

Integram did not return calls. Dakkota, based in Holt, Mich., declined to comment.

SWITCHING JOBS

Most workers go back to school using federal programs that help pay tuition, said Joe Ruzicka Jr., who oversees programs for dislocated workers in St. Louis County through St. Louis Community College. He has worked with workers laid off from Lear, Ford's Hazelwood plant and Chrysler.

But finding another job or switching to another career that matches the auto-manufacturing pay is "very difficult — not impossible but difficult," Ruzicka said.

At Integram, Gilley said, the lowest classification of workers, called production operators, made $20.26 an hour.

Coppinger started at that position and worked in similar paying jobs before he was laid off in January.

Now Coppinger, 30, of Union, is studying secondary education and social studies at Missouri Baptist University.

He figures that, with an average teacher's salary of $28,000 to $32,000, he'll take up to a $15,000 pay cut from his Integram job. And that doesn't include benefits.

"The package we had at Integram I don't think could be replaced," he said, adding that his wife has had to pick up extra work hours to meet their insurance premiums.

For workers who stay in auto-parts manufacturing — and their employers — the future looks bleak.

Many of today's local manufacturers probably won't be in business five years from now, Thiel predicted. The cost savings of overseas production and competition will continue to pressure companies.

"These times we're in right now, it's going to be survival of the fittest," she said.



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