online at www.uawlocal2250.com
From Chairman Mike Bullock:
Due to the end of the prime time vacation period, we have been informed that, unfortunately, 57 members will be laid off by Sept. 10. That would make the seniority date to hold the plant 11-2-1998 with a last four of 8000. This is a tentative number and could change based on manpower requirements such as covering sick leaves or paragraph 78s. The people being laid off are prime time vacation replacements and extras.
Reminder: Union meeting is Wednesday, Aug. 18 at 1 pm, 3 pm and 15 minutes after the longest first shift line time.
From the AP: The potential buyer of a General Motors stamping plant in Indianapolis is appealing to union members to allow a vote on a proposed contract that could keep the factory open. Members of United Auto Workers Local 23 decided over the weekend not to hold a scheduled Monday vote among the 650 workers on the offer from Addison, Ill.-based JD Norman Industries. Union leaders said the offer cut base wages of $29 an hour nearly in half. Company president Justin D. Norman said in a full-page advertisement Tuesday in The Indianapolis Star that the contract offer was the only way to keep the factory open and that it protected the GM transfer rights of the employees. GM announced last year it planned to close the plant in 2011.
From the Detroit News: The United Auto Workers has put a hold on trying to sell its $33 million Black Lake retreat in northern Michigan. The Walter and May Reuther Family Education Center was taken off the market at the request of UAW President Bob King and the union's new executive board, said John Karver, a senior vice president at CB Richard Ellis, the real estate firm handling the listing. "I understand it's simply a matter of the new board reviewing previous policy decisions," Karver said. There has been interest by more than one potential buyer, he said. The property had no listing price, Karver said. It's not clear when or what the new UAW leaders may decide about the property, Karver said. UAW officials did not return calls and e-mails for this report.
Part 2 of Wall Street Journal article about new GM CEO Dan Akerson on back:
Mr. Akerson often clashed with managers in a way that was counterproductive to getting work done, Mr. Ruelle who was a managing director of MCI Inc. when Mr. Akerson was the chief operating officer of the telephone company said in an interview. Around 1990, he recalled, top MCI executives were considering a major increase in the budget for the company's "Friends and Family" advertising campaign.
If the plan failed, Mr. Akerson told the group, "I'm going to have my eyes on you,' " Mr. Ruelle recalled Mr. Akerson saying. "If you were fighting the Taliban, he'd rip their back ends off."
Mr. Akerson said he doesn't recall the incident specifically, but said it was a major decision to spend that much on Friends and Family, which he helped conceive. As for his style, he said he uses colorful language and is direct.
Many on Wall Street regard Mr. Akerson as the right kind of executive to reassure investors that GM will continue making tough decision and avoid reverting to its plodding, spendthrift ways. Mr. Akerson, 61 years old and a former chief executive of cellphone company Nextel, was brought to GM's board by President Obama's auto task force, which liked his reputation and thought he could be a good option if a new CEO were needed at some point.
"He cuts right to the heart of an issue," said Mark LaNeve, GM's former sales and marketing chief, who was among the slew of executives ushered out as Mr. Whitacre built a new management team.
Mr. LaNeve said Mr. Akerson often pressed GM executives in meetings to justify strategies and initiatives, and didn't back down when he was told that matters were "complicated. "He'd say, 'It shouldn't be complicated,' " Mr. LaNeve said. "He'd say, 'We need to simplify the issue."
The lack of simple, direct leadership, Mr. Akerson said in the interview, was at the core of his displeasure with GM's old executive ranks. Too often, he said, executives would manage functions they didn't fully understand or take on too much responsibility.
At other stops in his career, Mr. Akerson has shown an ability to move quickly when the stakes are high. When he became CEO of General Instrument Corp. in the 1990s, the cable-TV equipment maker was under fire from John Malone, then CEO of cable systems owner Tele-Communications Inc. Mr. Malone had complained publicly about General Instrument's delay in developing digital set-top boxes.
The boxes were an innovative technology designed to handle 500 channels for cable and satellite TV. To address the delay, Mr. Akerson cut R&D outlays to free up funds needed to build the boxes and laid off some underperforming engineers, said a person familiar with the situation.
Then he flew to see Mr. Malone and apologized for the delay. "He said, 'We are behind. Here's what we are going to do about it,' '' the person recalls. "John respected that and did hang in there."
A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Mr. Akerson served on the destroyer U.S.S. DuPont from 1970 to 1975. He said playing a role in GM's turnaround fulfills a sense of duty. If the company succeeds, he said, "I can make a bigger contribution to the country than I did with my time in the Navy."
Harvey Golub, a former chairman and CEO of American Express Co., remembers Mr. Akerson as a tough member of Amex's board, on which Mr. Akerson has served since 1995. "You couldn't B.S. him," Mr. Golub said last week. "If something wasn't clear, he asked questions until it was. And they were good questions."
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