Union protests appear to have stymied, for the moment anyway, GM's plans to import large numbers of cars from abroad.
Members of the United Auto Workers Union are expected to vote to accept more concessions as part of revised contract with General Motors Corporation, including a ban on strikes until 2015. GM needs the concessions to survive and the union has no choice but to give them, observed one local union leader. “Ron Gettelfinger and Cal Rapson did about as well as they could do,” he added.
UAW local union leadership representing UAW members at General Motors facilities across the country voted unanimously on Tuesday to recommend for ratification a new settlement agreement that modifies the 2007 UAW-GM National Agreement as well as changes to the Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association trust for retiree health care.
As usual, the UAW is not releasing details of the agreement until after the vote is completed later this week. The agreement reduces the number of skilled trade classifications – long a point of contention inside GM plants – to just three for electrical, mechanical and tool and die trades. The sweeping consolidation of skilled trade classifications had long been sought, unsuccessfully, by GM’s management.
While not part of the latest contract, union protests appear to have stymied, for the moment anyway, GM’s plans to import large numbers of cars from abroad. The new GM plan outlined for UAW officials this week also increases the chance that of the four additional assembly plants GM was planning to close, at least three will now be retooled for new products previously slated for GM factories in other countries. The shift came on the heels of intense lobbying blitz by the union that put pressure on GM, the U.S. Treasury Department and the Obama Administration.
GM assembly plants in Orion Township and in Pontiac, Michigan have been on a speculative list of plants targeted for closing, along with GM plants in Wilmington, Delaware, Spring Hill, Tennessee and Shreveport, Louisiana. In fact, union officials in Tennessee last week had publicly pronounced the former Saturn plant Spring Hill plant as good as closed.
GM has never disclosed which plants it is preparing to close, but the new plans could provide a lifeline to plants on the target list. In addition, at least one of the plants, probably the factory in Wilmington, could be part of the deal for Saturn, if it is sold.
“The overall number of vehicles GM will be importing in 2014 represents the production of four assembly plants, the same number that GM plans to close in the United States,” UAW legislative director Alan Reuther said in a letter to congressmen. “The UAW strongly objects to GM’s restructuring plan because it essentially means that GM will be shifting more of its manufacturing footprint from the U.S. to Mexico, Korea, Japan and China. Chrysler Corporation and Ford Motor Company are doing the same thing to a lesser degree.
“If GM is going to receive government assistance to facilitate its restructuring, along with the benefits from tremendous sacrifices by UAW members and other stakeholders, we believe it should have an obligation to build in this country the vehicles it will be selling in the U.S.,” Reuther said.
The core issue the union is raising – U.S. jobs – is an aspect of industrial policy debates that politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties have ducked for decades. With unemployment at record levels and increasing, our lack of industrial policy is glaringly obvious. Every major nation in the world has policies, laws, tariffs and non-tariff regulations that protect jobs and encourage the export of goods and services into the large, profitable and unrestricted U.S. market. U.S. employment continued to decline in April as another 539,000 jobs evaporated to total 13.7 million out of work people, and the unemployment rate rose from 8.5% to 8.9%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
GM’s also is going to make another effort to thin out the ranks of skilled trade workers. The tentative contract includes another round of buyouts for GM’s 60,000 hourly workers. The buyouts will begin June 9 and will include a $20,000 cash payment for production workers plus a $25,000 car voucher and $40,000 cash payment for skilled trades workers, plus the car voucher.