State of the Union April 7, 2011

April 6, 2011 online at www.uawlocal2250.com

Reminder From the Women’s Committee: You are invited to the annual Easter Egg Hunt at the Union Hall this Saturday, April 9. Doors will open at 10:30 am and the hunt will begin promptly at 12 noon sharp. There will be only one Easter Egg hunt. Bring the children/grandchildren and meet the Easter Bunny. There will also be a balloon artist, face painting, clowns and a craft table. Hot dogs and soda will be provided.

From CNNMoney: Mercedes-Benz is recalling 137,000 M-class SUVs because the cruise control doesn't immediately disengage when drivers tap the brake pedal. Under some circumstances, particularly if the driver pumps the brakes, the cruise control system can require an excessive amount of brake force before it will shut off, according to a letter Mercedes-Benz sent to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on March 31.

From the PRNewswire: The Ford brand increased its owner loyalty rate by 4.5 percentage points and led all brands with an owner loyalty rate of 60.3 percent. Industry-wide brand loyalty in 2010 was up 2.1 percentage points from 2009. This is the highest brand loyalty rate since Polk first began calculating industry brand loyalty in 1996. The top five brands and their loyalty rates for 2010 are as follows:

Brand Loyalty Rate Change from 2009
Ford 60.3 percent +4.5 percentage points
Mercedes-Benz 56.7 percent +2.1 percentage points
Honda 56.6 percent +1.1 percentage points
Toyota 56.4 percent -0.4 percentage point
Chevrolet 53 percent +1.4 percentage points

Recently GM invited a group of journalists to participate in a GMS Simulated Work Environment session. Here are some excerpts from Forbes reporter Joann Muller’s article about her experience: After spending half a day learning how to put together an automobile, I have this to say: it is not as easy as it looks. General Motors and the United Auto Workers union invited me and 15 other automotive reporters to participate in a simulated work environment training class at GM’s Orion assembly plant near Pontiac, Mich., on Tuesday. The hands-on training is virtually the same as GM employees receive before they’re certified to start building cars for real.
My job was to use a power tool to attach front and rear “bumpers” on a wooden mock-up of a car as it rolled down the assembly line. Then later, I swapped jobs with a coworker and began installing “headlights” and “tail lights.”
I was, in a word, terrible at it. I got so flustered trying to keep up with the moving car that I fumbled with the nuts and kept dropping them on the floor. Each time I messed up, I had to pull a yellow andon chord overhead, triggering a red light and a computerized rendition of the “Hawaii Five-O” theme, which summoned my team leader to clean up my mess (lest I fall further behind).

At least I wasn’t alone. The other journalists were just as bad, or worse, at their jobs. Michigan Radio’s Tracy Samilton and I were like Lucy and Ethel trying to keep up in the candy factory. She dropped a “bumper” on the floor, meaning the part had to be scrapped and our team would not meet its cost target. Safety was also lacking: the journalists recorded 22 safety “incidents” in 20 minutes — including a worker who was hit four times by a car coming down the line. At the end of our first 20-minute shift, we produced only 13 cars (instead of 18, our target), with a total of 25 defects, which meant we would have to return Saturday for unscheduled overtime to fix the faulty cars and meet our production goals. I learned that’s a very bad thing.

After making some adjustments within each team, the journalists managed to produce eight cars in 10 minutes (one short of our goal) and reduced the number of defects from 25 to 7. We also cut the number of safety incidents to just 6. With a little more practice, we might have gotten to our targets of zero defects and zero safety problems. GM employees are working toward similar goals as they prepare for the launch of the Chevrolet Sonic subcompact and Buick Verano compact later this year. GM is the only manufacturer building subcompacts in the United States. To do so profitably, the car maker struck a breakthrough deal with the UAW during its bankruptcy reorganization. About 40% of the plant’s 1,640 workers will be paid about $14 per hour, about half the hourly rate of their more senior coworkers.
They’re worth every penny.