A Hammond automobile parts supplier plans to add a third working shift as a result of Ford Motor Co.’s plans to do the same at its Chicago Assembly Plant.
Contract Services Group President Mirko Marich said Monday the company is looking for between 35 and 40 people to fill automotive parts assembly and quality inspection positions. He said the hiring boost is the result of improvements in automobile activity and production.
CSG is a supplier of seating sub-assemblies to Lear in Hammond, which sends finished seats to Ford to install in its vehicles.
In connection with the planned employment boost, CSG is working with Staff Source to field a pool of applicants for the full-time positions. The recruitment fair will be from 9 a.m. to noon Wednesday at the StaffSource office, 2500 165th St., in Hammond.
“Our main customer is Lear Corp.,” Marich said. “So Ford hires a third shift, Lear hires a third shift — we’ll hire a third shift to support that.
“It’s a function of reducing overtime. We have people working five and six days a week, 10-hour shifts; it’s not sustainable.”
Marich said the wage for employees depends on the working shift and location. Applicants have to pass a pre-employment drug screening and have the flexibility to work overtime and weekends.
New hires will be brought into CSG at the lower wage of a two-tier wage scale, which is about $8.50 an hour, said Jaime Luna, president of United Auto Workers Local 2335. Luna said workers were really busy at the plant, and there is a lot of new employee-training activity happening.
Luna said there are about 160 union workers at CSG now, which is about three times the number of workers employed there 18 months ago.
The union local represents workers at the CSG facility and at Lear’s Hammond seat manufacturing plant. Luna said by the time Lear completes hiring employees for its third shift next month, there could be nearly 700 union workers at that plant.