Daimler to drop Sterling truck brand

Daimler Trucks North America will discontinue the Sterling Trucks brand in March but will make additions to its Freightliner and Western Star ranges to cover market segments that the brand has served, the Stuttgart-based parent company said in a statement.

Sterling's products include tractor-trailers like the Set-Back A-Line, as well as the Acterra, Sterling 360 and Bullet models--medium- to heavy-duty trucks often used as dump trucks or for freight, towing, trash collection or utility maintenance.

Daimler said truck manufacturing at its St. Thomas, Ontario, plant will end in March 2009, when its current agreement with the Canadian Auto Workers at the facility expires.

It said DTNA also will close its Portland, Ore., truck plant in June 2010, when labor contracts there expire. The company said Western Star production will be assigned to a plant in Santiago, Mexico, while Freightliner-brand military vehicles will be produced at one of its facilities in the Carolinas by mid-2010.

Daimler said about 2,300 workers at St. Thomas and Portland will be affected. That includes previously announced layoffs of some 720 workers at the Canadian plant, whose jobs will go next month.

Daimler also laid off 600 people at the St. Thomas facility last year.

CAW President Ken Lewenza said Daimler's cuts in Ontario add to nearby job losses at Ford Motor Co.'s St. Thomas assembly plant and recent layoffs at 3M Co. and Formet Industries, a unit of Magna International Inc.

"This is another example of the loss of hundreds highly skilled, family-supporting jobs which cannot be replaced by the slew of recently created part-time jobs, Lewenza said in a news release.

Bob Hammersley, general manager of the St. Thomas and District Chamber of Commerce, said the announcement was not a total surprise considering the state of the slumping automotive industry, but added that it was something "we tried not to talk about."