For the third week in a row, workers transferring to General Motors' Fort Wayne Assembly Plant are learning about their new workplace - and their new community - in a 44-hour orientation course at the factory.

Orval Plumlee, president of United Auto Workers Local 2209, which represents the plant near Roanoke, said about 80 workers are in this week's orientation program, which began Monday. They are being transferred to Fort Wayne to staff a third shift at the truck-assembly plant here. Plumlee said the latest schedule calls for third-shift production to begin in late April or early May.

“It's been a pretty smooth process, and we're ahead of schedule,” he said. But Plumlee noted that the schedule remains fluid. “I can give you the gospel, but then the gospel can change.”

Workers are coming from several sites where GM had operations, including Janesville, Wis.; Pontiac, Mich.; Mansfield, Ohio; and Shreveport, La. Plumlee said he doesn't know yet how many workers will be transferred from each plant; in fact, transfer rosters are still changing, plant by plant. In all, the company plans to add about 700 workers in Fort Wayne to staff a third production shift.

Company managers “are thinking a little less than 700; I'm thinking a little more than 700,” Plumlee said.

“We'll see whose crystal ball is better.”

Workers from other GM factories are learning the layout and work flow of the massive facility, as well as safety procedures and other necessities for joining the work force here. They're also getting introductions to real-estate agents, bankers, representatives of school systems and other service-providers they'll need to settle into northeast Indiana.

Plumlee, who transferred here early in the truck plant's operation from a GM factory in Kansas City, Mo., said new arrivals naturally look to co-workers for help in finding schools, housing, churches and shopping that suit them.

From what Plumlee has seen so far, there's no pigeonholing the transferred workers in terms of where they want to settle.

“A lot of people are looking for houses to rent because they have children and pets,” Plumlee said. “Some are looking for housing in Aboite; other people have fallen in love with New Haven.”

GM announced plans in September to add a third shift here. At that time, the company said workers from the Pontiac, Mich., assembly plant would be first in line to transfer to jobs here.