Note: I originally wrote this first part of the article on Thursday, but due to time constraints and other commitments was unable to finish the second-half and/or get it posted until now.

I’m sure that by now everyone has heard at least something in regards to fact that Chrysler is shutting down it’s factories between December 19, 2008 and January 19, 2009. However, how many additional details are known? In my quest for additional information, I haven’t really been able to find a whole lot and wanted to share my adventures with you all.

When I first started seeing this story come through my RSS reader Wednesday, the above information was about all that was available. Of course the AP and other sources included some numbers in the article that talked about the amounts of money the different companies have asked for in the “bailout plan” and overall sales reports, but there were no specifics to be found anywhere. Some of the articles mentioned that this was announced in a letter that was sent to Chrysler employees, the UAW, and it was supposedly also posted to their website. However, I was unable to find the letter anywhere on the internet.

This left me with a few questions that I wanted to get answered:

How is this going to affect the employees that work in these factories?
Are other employees that don’t work in the factories going to get special treatment?
How much is Chrysler going to save by doing this, does this really cut costs?
How many less vehicles are going to be produced as a result?
Is this going to affect all of the brands under Chrysler LLC or just the Chrysler brand?
Is just the manufacturing shutting down or are there other departments such as advertising and research & development that will be affected as well?

Looking through the company blog and news portions of the Chrysler site painted a picture of a company that does not update their website on a very regular basis and very little information (about anything at all) was available there. Finally, I happened to stumble across this New York Times article that partially answers one of the questions by including the text:

Workers at the plants will be laid off during the down time, but a supplemental unemployment program ensures that they will continue to receive most of their pay.

So we know that the workers that will not be working will at least not be completely without a paycheck during this period and for most purposes can view it as an extended vacation over the holidays. In that case, it might not be such a bad deal and most people might not mind being in their shoes. However, what is considered “most” of their pay? If you get 51% of what you were getting before, you’re still getting most of it. So, in retrospect, perhaps the question isn’t answered after all.

Well, back to these unanswered questions. Since the internet was not helping to answer these questions, I thought perhaps I could get the answers and put them on the internet. If not, perhaps I could at least get the answers for my own knowledge and not put them on the internet if I was told not to. However, I still needed to get the information. In order to attempt to do this, I looked around Chrysler’s website for a public affairs or public relations type phone number that I could call to ask some of these questions to and/or perhaps be pointed toward the letter that was supposedly online. However, I was unable to locate a Press Release section and I was only able to locate one phone number.

I called that number and it connected me with a Warranty and Recall department. I knew these phone agents would not have the information I needed and explained to the individual who answered the phone that I was looking for a Public Relations office. He told me that he didn’t have that number but he could give the the number to a different department that would be able to help me out. Well, the number he gave me was the number for the financial division of Chrysler, and by financial I don’t mean investor relations (they are privately held by the way) or dealing with company finances. This was the number for Chrysler Financial which is the company that handles dealer financing of new vehicles and other such issues. The agent who answered the phone advised me that he did not have any number or email address for a public relations department but that I could send an email using the customer service contact form on the website.

Well, I thought, that’s the end of that story. I have no numbers left to call and I don’t want to send a generic customer service email that may or may not get a response from someone who can help me. I was going to write the above post, be done with it, and just watch what happens with the rest of America.

However, that was just not meant to be, check back tomorrow to see what happens in the next part of this adventure.