Feb 17, 2011 online at www.uawlocal2250.com
From Chairman Mike Bullock: The addition of a partial crew on 2nd shift body shop has generated returns of 30 of our members. 24 of these returns will come from lay off. The first twelve will be returned on March 7, everyone up to and including seniority date 12/18/2000. The next twelve will be returned March 14, everyone up to and including seniority date 6/2/2008 with the tiebreaker being OGM date of 6/24/85. Management will be calling and sending letters to all those affected next week. These returns dates and seniority dates are all tentative and could change. The remaining 6 will come from those members who transferred to either Fairfax or Ft. Wayne under the basic relocation package (stay 6 mos.), 4 will come from Fairfax with a seniority date greater than 9/22/99 and 2 will come from Ft. Wayne with a seniority date greater than 9/16/99. The 24 returning from lay off had exhausted their sub benefits and most had exhausted their insurance benefits. They are all anxious to return. The 6 returning from out of state will all be reuniting with their families. Most have been going back and forth between their homes and plants on weekends for the previous 16 months.
From the Detroit Free Press: Honda is recalling nearly 700,000 Fit, Freed and City compact cars around the world for a defective spring part that may cause the engine to stall. No accidents have been reported related to the problem, but at least 72 complaints were filed in Japan, and 29 abroad, Honda Motor Co. spokesman Tomohiro Okada said today. Recalled are 167,000 vehicles in Japan, 156,000 in China, and 233,000 in the rest of Asia, Tokyo-based Honda said. About 122,000 cars are being recalled in North America. The spring was placed improperly in a small box inside the engine, so that, in some cases, the problem could cause the engine to stall, Okada said.
From Automotive News: General Motors is recalling over 44,000 Cadillac CTS sedans for a flaw that could cause one of the rear wheels to become unstable. The recall affects CTS vehicles from the 2009 and 2010 model years. GM said it would begin to notify owners of the vehicles covered by the recall. Dealers will inspect vehicles under recall and replace a potentially faulty rear toe link. GM said it expects to have to replace the part on about one in 20 of the vehicles covered by the recall. The automaker said it knew of no injuries or fatalities caused by a failure of the faulty part. Here are some excerpts from an article on the CNNMoney website entitled, “How the middle class became the underclass”: Incomes for 90% of Americans have been stuck in neutral, and it's not just because of the Great Recession. Middle-class incomes have been stagnant for at least a generation, while the wealthiest tier has surged ahead at lightning speed. In 1988, the income of an average American taxpayer was $33,400, adjusted for inflation. Fast forward 20 years, and not much had changed: The average income was still just $33,000 in 2008, according to IRS data. Meanwhile, the richest 1% of Americans -- those making $380,000 or more -- have seen their incomes grow 33% over the last 20 years, leaving average Americans in the dust. Experts point to some of the usual suspects -- like technology and globalization -- to explain the widening gap between the haves and have-nots. But there's more to the story. One major pull on the working man was the decline of unions and other labor protections, said Bill Rodgers, a former chief economist for the Labor Department, now a professor at Rutgers University. Because of deals struck through collective bargaining, union workers have traditionally earned 15% to 20% more than their non-union counterparts, Rodgers said. But union membership has declined rapidly over the past 30 years. In 1983, union workers made up about 20% of the workforce. In 2010, they represented less than 12%.
"The erosion of collective bargaining is a key factor to explain why low-wage workers and middle income workers have seen their wages not stay up with inflation," Rodgers said. Without collective bargaining pushing up wages, especially for blue-collar work -- average incomes have stagnated.
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