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Centreville-based fire truck manufacturer is in dire need of chassis. Without the chassis, layoffs are pending.

A shortage of truck chassis from its suppliers has forced Metalfab Ltd. to slow down its production lines, said a company spokesperson, who added the firm is expected to temporarily layoff employees in April.

“We have got orders, but no trucks to build on,” explained Metalfab president Gordon Green. “There is a hole in the schedule, so we have to work around it.”

According to Green, the ongoing shortage is a result of the new North American diesel emissions standards as well as manufacturer and supplier issues. He pointed out the strike by workers at American Axle in the United States is affecting manufacturers, like General Motors, thus passing disruptions on down.

“When there is a shortage in the supply chain, it affects those of us down the line,” he added.

But the chassis shortage is not only affecting Metalfab.

“Orders have been a little soft for everyone, according to the Fire Apparatus Manufacturers Association, but it just varies depending how much of a backlog the companies had,” Green explained. “Some of the larger companies buy chassis ahead of time and build trucks on speculation. We don’t do much of that. We mostly build to order, so our trucks are mostly custom manufactured for each of the different customers.”

Green expects the April layoffs to last four to six weeks, although it is still up in the air at this point.

“We’re still working our schedules,” Green added. “If we can possibly avoid it, we will. But the logistics are such that if I got an order for 10 trucks tomorrow, I still have to get the chassis, which is a three-to-five-month delivery and so on. So it will just depend on the logistics, we have been trying to be proactive in keeping the employees up to date on where we are at. This (layoff) is still a month away, who knows what can happen in a month.”

The company sought federal assistance to get through the shortage, but Green said Metalfab was turned down, leaving the company with the only other alternative – a temporary layoff.

“What we had hoped was to get into the (federal) work-sharing program where we could cut down to a shorter work week, and that way you wouldn’t have any layoffs at all,” explained Green, noting he has used it previously in 2002. “You would be running a three-day work week or a four-day work week instead of the full five-day work week. It is a program that works fairly well for situations like this.”

While the program is designed for manufacturing companies like Metalfab, Tobique-Mactaquac MP Mike Allen could not comment on Metalfab’s specific case. He did explained the work-sharing program operates through Employment Insurance (EI) and is intended for companies who are experiencing short-term troubles.

“It is designed to assist employers to retain their workforce if they see a temporary decline in their work and work load,” explained Allen. “Basically it gives some stability to your employees that you are going to able to retain them and not take off.”

To use the program, Allen said, the employer and the employees need to a consensus on how the work can be shared. The company is also required to develop a recovery plan.

“So you just can’t leave it openended,” he said. “It has got to be saying this is how this works and this is what we want to do.”

Allen pointed out some companies in his riding have explored the program and have worked with program to keep their workers in the region.

Despite the pending layoffs, Green added, there is no risk of the employees losing their jobs and reiterated the layoffs are just temporary as the company waits out the shortage.