When I first moved to Detroit, I was surprised to find the town goes on vacation twice a year. Automakers must stop their assembly lines periodically to fix broken machines or complete minor retooling. So the automakers take the opportunity to declare a company-wide holiday. But multiple General Motors factories have extended the regular winter shutdown to four weeks. The automaker will stop Corvette production for an entire month, laying off most of its workers in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

“Extended holiday downtime” for GM’s Kentucky employees

General Motors announced “extended holiday downtime” at two factories: Flint, Michigan, and Bowling Green, Kentucky. The Bowling Green plant is going idle early and will not reopen until at least January 12.

On December 12, Charles Laster, president of UAW Local 2164, told us, “The majority of people will be, you know, laid off today.” He added that some employees “will be working next week” to complete necessary factory repairs. “There’s some that won’t be laid off at all.” But with the assembly line paused, most of the 1,100 employees will have to stay home.

Do workers get paid during factory downtime?

One of the reasons winter downtime lines up with winter holidays is that workers want those days off anyway. “We’ll still get our holiday pay. December 24th through January 2nd will be holiday pay.”

So what about the rest of this year’s extended downtime? According to Laster, pay depends on employment status. Full-time employees “still get their unemployment benefits and their sub pay. Which equals, I believe, like 85% of their pay or 90%.” Temporary workers will not get sub pay. After four weeks, more than a few may find work elsewhere. And there are rumors that’s exactly what GM wants.

Is GM tcovertly reducing its workforce?

So why is GM extending downtime at multiple factories simultaneously? Some believe it is a way to quietly reduce its workforce.

When a Redditor asked the Genearl Motors forum “What’s going on at Flint?” one commenter had an interesting take. ContributionDry8845 wrote, “Had to create a burner account to respond.” Then they said, “Flint Assembly is taking a couple action to increase attrition of its temps.” How? “Flint Assembly Shutdown (planned) encourages the temporary labor that doesn’t get sub pay to end their employment.”

The commenter believes “Temps and OT is out of hand in Flint,” but that GM’s end goal is to avoid bad press and “not issue a public WARN notice for removing a shift.” A WARN notice is the required state filing that accompanies a large layoff.

Obviously, this is a single anonymous comment from an unverified source. It seems unlikely GM will lose so many temporary workers that it can drop an entire shift—at either Flint or Bowling Green. But the automaker might not complain about trimming down its temporary workforce and cutting costs across both factories.

“Everybody will be back”

When asked outright, Laster insisted that is not what’s going on in Kentucky. He said GM just has to do “a little more work, that’s going to take them a little more time, from the way I understand it.” He adds, “We’re bringing back everybody that we’re laying off. Everybody will be back to work on January 12th.”