State of the Union April 14, 2010

April 14, 2010 online at www.uawlocal2250.com

•    There will be a Union Label Committee meeting today after first shift at the Union Hall.
•    Some excerpts from the March sales report from Marketing Manager Andrew Reyntjes: I am pleased to let you know that we exceeded our corporate objectives for the month with 5,456 deliveries. We did this despite low inventory levels at dealers. Given the seasonality of Fleet buying cycles there has been a lack of availability for dealers to obtain stock, this means that a customer walking into a GM dealership looking for a van is being turned away due to lack of availability of the product that they want and are going to the Ford dealer next door. We are hoping to benefit from built-up demand as businesses have held onto their vans until business conditions improve. When this happens hopefully we will have available inventory to take advantage of the change. We need to continue to watch Transit Connect, they continue to do well and unfortunately we had a loss of 1000 Tyco vans (a long time customer) that went to Ford Transit Connect. This impact will flow through in coming months’ results.
•    From USA Today: At least 131 Toyotaowners report experiencing unintended acceleration after their recalled vehicles were repaired at dealerships, a USA TODAY review of federal records shows. Daily complaints — from three on Monday to 11 on March 5 — to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration come as Toyota continues to contend mechanical, and not electronics, issues are to blame. One of the many complaints came from a Toyota Tundra owner from Needham, Mass., who had the accelerator pedal repaired in February after the (truck) took off while in reverse. "I just thank God there was not a child behind my car," the driver told NHTSA. Since then, the driver says, the car accelerates on its own at least five to nine times a week.(park the damn thing!)