State of the Union February 9, 2011

Feb 8, 2011 online at www.uawlocal2250.com

There is a Veteran’s Committee meeting Thursday, Feb. 10 after first shift at the Union Hall.

The Vehicle Advocate Program (VAP) starts tomorrow. If you were drawn to drive a vehicle, you need to go to the main security gate after your shift. They will have the vehicle pass and the keys to your vehicle. You will need to write the beginning and ending mileage on the vehicle pass form and you are encouraged to fill out the survey. When you return the vehicle it should be full of gas and as clean as can be expected. Then return the keys and the vehicle pass to main security. Even though drivers will have the vehicles multiple days, they need to return the keys every day as there are drive events scheduled during the day.

Reminder: Raffle tickets for the VAP vehicles from Feb. 23 – 27 are on sale and available from any VAP team member, PMN member or at Suggestion, Benefits or Personnel. Tickets are $5 apiece or 3 for $10 and the proceeds will go to this year’s Make-A-Wish dream.

From the Detroit News: General Motors Co.'s hourly workers can expect some of the largest profit-sharing checks ever, when the automaker pays bonuses for the money earned in 2010, a top union official said Monday. United AutoWorkers' Vice President Joe Ashton, who oversees the union's labor relations with GM, said the bonuses are likely to top the average $1,775 workers got for 1999, the company's biggest payout to date. "I would think so," he said. The union's leadership should get an exact amount around Feb.14, Ashton said, when the automaker is required by the UAW contract to report a figure to its top officials. GM officials will announce the final figure to rank-and-file workers separately. GM hasn't set a date for the announcement. "We don't have an exact number yet," said Ashton, speaking at an event held for U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis at GM's Detroit Hamtramck plant. But when it's announced, it "will be one of the bigger ones, I'm sure." GM could top off the bonuses with incentive pay not required by the contract, but Ashton declined to say if that's been decided. "We've had conversations with GM, and I'm sure GM is looking at any opportunity to reward their workers," he said. The size of the bonuses, Ashton noted, could "set the tone" for the contract talks that begin this summer. The contract expires in September.

Here is the January sales report from Marketing Manager Andrew Reyntjes:
It is worth noting that this was our best G-Van January since 2008. We are also showing a dramatic 83.5% volume increase vs last January and more importantly a share increase of 7.58% vs our performance in January of 2010. Our segment share is currently at just over 40% so we are gaining ground on Ford. With two main players in the segment share swings are more volatile and given the fact that this is a strong commercial fleet vehicle a large delivery to a big customer can swing share results substantially. To this end we are going to be paying a lot of attention to large profitable commercial fleet customers this year and do whatever we can to win their business. As we enter 2011 we are going to be facing a new competitive entry. Nissan is launching its NPV van. Nissan is entering the commercial space with this entry. While not as capable as our offering in many areas it is new, with a fresh design, has a high roof and will have significant resources put behind it as Nissan breaks into the commercial business. In this month’s sales reporting presentation I have included pictures of a Nissan van that was on display at one of our largest customer's annual convention. The customer, Belron/Safelite, is a large volume customer and we work very hard to keep them happy whenever we can. Unfortunately we are not yet able to offer rear backup cameras or sensors on our G-van. While it is in the GM plan until 2013 or 2014 Nissan has it now and is exploiting this competitive advantage as it tries to break its way into the market. We need to be very careful and do whatever we can to prevent the defection of key commercial customers to Nissan.
In 2011 we have identified some areas of opportunity to increase our sales and share in the commercial passenger van market. Working with our Engineering partners we are hopeful of timely implementation of a running board solution and we are looking forward to leveraging our relationship with NHTSA to overturn a stigma on 15 Passenger vans that has been adopted from a NHTSA white paper on an unsafe competitive vehicle from a decade ago. Both of these initiatives will help us capture customers in the van pool, hospital, hospitality, residential care, ground transportation, family services, school & university, elderly care and municipal transport vocations. We are currently not performing very well in these vocations.
Continuing in 2011 will be our grassroots promotions aimed at small and medium businesses, as we create photographic and video assets we will utilize them internally but also offer them as a goodwill gesture to our commercial customers and dealers who may then use them in their advertising. We are continuing to push to include the Express with Chevrolet divisional incentives, promotions and advertising. Wherever possible we will involve our GM Media team. GM Media and Communications will be a valuable partner as we try to raise brand awareness and opinion. We will utilize them as we launch CNG, make use of our assets at trade shows, promotional and community events and for any awards such as our 2010 IntelliChoice Full-Size Van Best overall value award for the Express 1500.