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GM, UAW poaching Nissan workers in Tennessee

General Motors and the United Auto Workers are going on a recruitment drive at the Spring Hill factory in Tennessee, and they're hoping to poach some skilled workers from Nissan's nearby plant in Smyrna, TN. The General and the union even bought a billboard advertising for industrial electricians near the Japanese automaker's facility, according to the Daily News Journal. The reason for the billboard was simple. "GM was short of electricians," said Tim Stannard, the president of the UAW local at Spring Hill, to the Daily News Journal. The factory currently builds the Chevrolet Equinox but has a contract to assemble the next generation of Ecotec engines and the Cadillac XT5, which replaces the SRX. Thanks to the $185-million deal, employment there is expected to double by May 2016, according to Stannard, with roughly 1,800 additional union jobs. Beyond just several billboards, GM has job postings online for the Spring Hill plant looking for workers with specific skills. There has already been some interest in the positions among Nissan employees, Stannard indicated. According to a recent study by the Center for Automotive Research, the average GM worker currently makes $58 an hour, including benefits. Comparatively, Nissan pays an average of $42 an hour with benefits. The General's number could change in the coming weeks because its contract with the UAW is about to expire, and higher wages are among the major negotiating points.

GM recalls 740,000 vehicles over daytime running light issue

General Motors is recalling over 740,000 vehicles due to a daytime running light issue that causes all of the affected cars to run afoul of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. Vehicles affected by this recall are spread across many of GM’s brands. Models include the 2020-2023 Cadillac CT4 and CT5, 2021-2023 Buick Envision, 2022-2023 Cadillac Escalade and Escalade ESV, 2022-2023 Chevrolet Silverado 1500, Suburban, Tahoe and 2022-2023 GMC Sierra 1500, Yukon, and Yukon XL. GM says that the daytime running lights may remain on in these cars when the headlights are activated. This is a problem, because FMVSS rules require that the daytime running lights deactivate once the headlights turn on. If the DRLs remain on, GM says that could result in additional glare, thereby increasing the risk of an accident. The cause of this failure to deactivate the DRLs comes from body control module software that “under a combination of certain pre-conditions, could fail to deactivate the DRLs,” according to GM. Other GM vehicles were tested, but due to a difference in software or hardware, they remain unaffected. If this is reminding you of another recent GM recall, youÂ’d be right, as GM recalled another 340,000 vehicles for the same issue last month. After that original issue was found within GM, the company began looking into its other cars to determine if the population was larger than originally thought. GM found the additional vehicles included in todayÂ’s recall have the problem. The fix will either be via an over-the-air update or it will require you to bring the vehicle into a dealer for a software update, depending on which vehicle you have. Owner notification letters letting folks know what is necessary are currently scheduled to go out on January 23, 2023. Related video: Cadillac Escalade Infotainment Review

Mark Reuss: GM can't afford product 'misses,' has 'thought about' CT6 V-Series

Mark Reuss is a busy man. He oversees General Motors' global product portfolio, an all-encompassing task for a company that sold more than 9.9 million cars and trucks last year. When GM launches a well-received product, like the road-going rocket ship that is the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 – he gets credit. When the company stumbles with the slow-selling Chevy Malibu or grapples with fallout from the decade-old Saturn Ion and its flawed ignition switch, he gets blamed. GM owners, the press and sometimes the federal government, demand answers. Bob Lutz famously held the job before Reuss. So did Mary Barra, who's now GM's chief executive. There's a New GM, but the lineage is connected to a long history. When he's not thinking product, Reuss, an executive vice president, also runs the purchasing and supply chain for the company, which is still one of the largest industrial empires in the world. We caught up with Reuss on the floor of the New York Auto Show, where GM had just rolled out two crucial new products: the 2016 Cadillac CT6 and the 2016 Chevrolet Malibu. Speaking with a small group of reporters, Reuss delved into a variety of subjects, including the new Malibu, Cadillac's future (he thinks the ATS-V is going to "flame the M3 and M4"), and other topics. On fixing the Malibu: "We can't miss. We can't have those kinds of misses [like the previous generation] on our cars and crossovers and trucks. We can't do that. If we do that, we give a reason for someone to go buy something else. It's that simple. "On a car like the Malibu we have a chance to really fix all of that, which we have, and then lead. Then you've got a real opportunity there. So that's what we've really been focused on here – to fix those things." He later added: "We need that car here to transform Chevrolet desperately because it's the heart of the market. And when you think of Chevrolet, people will come back and think about what we did with the [new] Malibu and the Cruze... It's hugely important to us." On Cadillac: "If we go out and try and out-German the Germans, it's probably not going to work. We've got an opportunity here generationally where there's a lot of people younger than me that have parents that drove BMWs and Mercedes, and I think there's an opportunity there for those people to drive something different than what their parents did, and I think that's always been an opportunity in the auto industry if you look at the history of it.