Stellantis told employees in January to come back to work after years of allowing them to work mostly from home. When they did, some weren’t expecting to find tickets on their parked vehicles.
Stellantis employees who drive non-Stellantis vehicles — meaning anything that is not a Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Maserati or, in a peculiar circumstance, one of the brands’ European vehicles — are learning to be wary about where they park. That’s because the company is enforcing a rule that only Stellantis vehicles can take convenient parking spaces on the automaker’s sprawling Auburn Hills campus.
The Stellantis headquarters is a massive complex of about 500 acres with multiple parking garages and flat lots. The spots closest to the building are reserved for vehicles bearing the company’s brands — everyone else had better wear walking shoes.
The rule is not new, nor is it unusual for an American automaker. Ford Motor Co. and General Motors have similar parking policies, but the rule at Stellantis is garnering new attention as thousands of employees return to work on orders of the company.
Some returning employees have taken to social media to complain about the rule, posting to online forums about the tickets they found on their windshields.
Stellantis spokesperson Jodi Tinson, in an emailed statement to the Detroit Free Press, said a rule is a rule.
“Preferred parking is reserved for company-branded vehicles. Employees must adhere to posted signage and communications to ensure company policies are followed,” Tinson said.
The tickets are not from a law enforcement agency but rather Stellantis security agents who issue the slips, which are essentially warnings. There are no fines for parking a competitor’s vehicle in the wrong spot on campus. However, the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the story, did say that drivers who repeatedly park in the wrong spot may have a boot put on their car, requiring a call to a manager to have it removed.
Liam Rappleye covers Stellantis and the UAW for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him: LRappleye@freepress.com.