November 1, 2007 (LPAC)--Cerberus-owned Chrysler Corporation, waiting only days after its unions were compelled to accept a new contract with substantial wage and benefit cuts, announced the elimination of 8,500-10,000 more production jobs, and a total cut of up to 12,000 blue and white collar employees. The company started five plants in Toledo, Ohio, Detroit and Sterling Heights, Michigan, Belvidere, Illinois, and Brampton, Ontario on the road to closure, cutting out a shift at each one.

Chrysler closed six plants, eliminating 5,000 production jobs, in 2002-03. Now it has eliminated 11,000 more production employees since February of this year, and announced this additional 8,500-10,000 cut. By early in 2008, the company will have cut 20,000, or approximately 30%, of its entire production workforce in little more than a year.

That is the disastrous rate of shrinkage of the auto industry in the United States, the reservoir of the nation's primary capacity for machine-tooling and innovative industrial design.

The U.S. auto industry, including car and light truck production and auto parts/supply companies, has already (through September) lost 25% of its employment, 335,000 jobs, since the year 2000, and prior to the job cuts coming now. This is the destruction of the last and largest remaining area of "middle class" productive employment in the country.

Chrysler is slashing its productive capacity with sales continuing to fall; but the mortgage meltdown and financial collapse are hitting all sales. The entire auto industry's sales in the United States are down 2.7% for the first ten months of this year, the third straight year of falling sales, and heading for a yearly sales total below 16 million for the first time since 1995.