Note: If you haven’t read the first part of this story, do that first as this is a continuation and you probably don’t want to start in the middle.

So, as I was penning my previous post, I had the Chrysler Financial website in my browser and switched over to it in an effort to describe them better than:

the company that handles dealer financing of new vehicles and other such issues

I was hoping that I would be able to find some sort of description on their website saying who they are and what they do. I did find the following description on the website:

Chrysler Financial and its trained professionals offer a broad range of financial services including wholesale finance plans, dealer finance plans, dealer services, retail consumer finance plans, lease programs and insurance programs.

However, for the purposes of the rant/story that I am telling decided that my original text would be sufficient. Then, tucked away at the bottom of one of the pages (not on their homepage) I saw a link titled “News & Media” and decided to investigate. I didn’t expect to find the information I was originally looking for, but figured it couldn’t hurt to look and clicked on it.

Not surprisingly (based on the corporate blog and news site) the part of the site it took me to is not updated on a very regular basis and had no reference to my original questions. However, there was another link (titled “Chrysler Media Site”) that I thought might be worth checking out. Amazingly, this appeared to be the portion of the corporate site that relates to Public Relations and there were even some press releases there that I could read.

After looking through the available press releases, I did not find the information that I was looking for, however, I was able to locate contact information for two separate individuals presumably within the public relations department and decided to give one of them a call.

Fortunately, I was able to get ahold of Shawn Morgan in the Media Relations department of Chrysler LLC and she had a few moments and agreed to let me do a brief phone interview. My questions (the same ones that started this adventure) and her responses along with some additional thoughts that I thought of while typing this up are below:

Me: How is this going to affect the employees that work in these factories?

Shawn: Normally, they would have December 24th - January 2nd off for the holiday season. Due to market conditions, this break has been extended. The affected employees will still be getting paid through state unemployment agencies and Chrysler will be supplementing that state unemployment. At this time it hasn’t been discussed what percentage of their normal pay they will be getting, but that all goes through the UAW (or in Canada, the CAW) and the contracts with the unions. Plant managers, their staff, etc may or may not be coming in to work depending if they have things such as paperwork and planning that need to be done. It is the production that is being suspended.

Additional Thoughts: I should have asked how the pay structure normally works from December 24 through January 2 and how that normally affects employee wages as well as if those days were going to be treated as normal so that the only affected days would be December 19-23 and January 3-19. Also, I wonder if the managers and such that still have stuff to do will be getting regular pay or still qualify for unemployment or how that would all play out.

Me: Is this going to affect other employees that don’t work in the factories (i.e. yourself, accounting department, etc)?

Shawn: No, we will all be off from December 24 - January 2 as usual. The rest of the time, we will be working as usual according to our regular schedules.

Me: How much is Chrysler going to save by doing this? Is there a figure available as to the cost savings?

Shawn: That is unknown, the reason we are doing this is not necessarily to save money, but because we don’t have as many orders for vehicles as usual. People are buying fewer vehicles so the dealers are not ordering as many and therefore we need to cut production.

Me: How many fewer vehicles are going to be produced as a result of this shutdown?

Shawn: We don’t discuss our volumes with the public.

Additional Thoughts: This could probably be approximated by looking for approximate numbers of vehicles produced by Chrysler in a year and dividing that number by 12.

Me: This is going to affect all brands under the Chrysler LLC (such as Dodge and Jeep) and not just the Chrysler brand, correct?

Shawn: Yes

Me: It is just the manufacturing/production shutting down and other departments such as advertising and research & development will not be affected, correct?

Shawn: That is correct.

Well, that pretty much sums up my interview. There was a bit of additional discussion in regards to some of these issues, but nothing pertinent to this post so I have left it out. I hope this gives you a little more insight into exactly what it is that is going on in regards to Chrysler closing their plants for a month. I know I am happy to have found this information and am able to share it here with all of you.

A huge “thank you” goes out to Shawn for allowing me to interview her and provide us with this information. I just wish the contact information would have been a bit easier to find in the first place.

Update: It seems that there have been some updates to the various company news and blog sites for Chrysler LLC and their various brands as a result of their getting approval for $4 billion from the TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program) as a loan to help bridge the current financial crisis.