July 21, 2011 online at www.uawlocal2250.com
From Chairman Mike Bullock: This is a reminder to those who have returned to work in the last 30 days - if you were in a different department when you were laid off in August 2009, you can file a return to former group to that department. Applications are available in personnel. Also, all seniority members have been recalled. There are 27 entry-level workers who have gone time-for-time that have recall rights to permanent positions. There are 25 members who are eligible to return to Wentzville from Fairfax and Ft. Wayne to permanent openings. Regarding the referrals, there were 754 total, and all will be tested, which has already begun. There has been NO official announcement of the return of the second shift, but positive talks are ongoing.
Model change is scheduled for August 16 and there will be 97,107 model year 2011vans produced.
Reminder: You have until 4 pm, July 29 to opt out of the automatic enrollment in the PSP program. You can do so by accessing gmbenefits.com or contacting the GM Benefits & Services Center at 1-800-489-4646. The first payroll deduction into the PSP (3%) will occur on August 5, 2011. Employees who are automatically enrolled in the PSP and do not have an election on record for their investment option will have their contributions invested into the Pyramis Active Lifecycle Comingled Pool with a target retirement date closest to the year that the employee will attain age 65.
Chevrolet sold 2.35 million vehicles globally in the first six months of 2011, the best half-year performance in Chevrolet’s 100-year history. Chevrolet sold 286,499 more vehicles in the first half of 2011 than the same time period of 2010, a 14-percent increase year over year. In addition, Chevrolet set record first-half sales in many countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, France, South Africa, and Turkey. Chevrolet sold more than 330,000 Cruzes worldwide during the first half of 2011, a 132-percent increase over the same time period a year ago. Much of that growth came in China and the United States, where Cruze was the best-selling passenger car in the country in June. Since introduction in early 2009, Cruze has sold more than 800,000 units worldwide and is on track to exceed 1 million before the end of 2012.
From Automotive News: The auto industry is pressing the Obama administration for a promise to reevaluate rules that may more than double U.S. fuel economy standards by 2025 before they become final. The White House agrees that a review during the transition period is needed, said Ellen Gleberman, a vice president of trade group Global Automakers who has participated in talks between the government and industry on the proposed rule, which will set new mileage standards starting in 2017. The administration in June floated a fuel-economy target of 56.2 miles per gallon by 2025, up from 27.3 mpg now. Still under negotiation are details of the midpoint review, including the timing, whether there will be a judicial review and whether the Environmental Protection Agency, the Transportation Department and California’s Air Resources Board will coordinate efforts, Gleberman said. Lobbyists for General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group have pushed for relaxed standards on pickup trucks. That could come by assigning a lower mileage standard for pickups with higher carbon emissions or by making a special exemption just for those trucks, three people said. The auto industry is not allied on the truck issue, they said. Domestic carmakers would be more willing to agree to larger fuel economy increases for passenger cars in exchange for lower increases on trucks, the people said. That concerns some foreign carmakers who don’t sell pickups or get much greater sales from cars, they said. Automakers are also seeking credits for more efficient air conditioning systems, for zero-emission electric cars and for flexible fuel vehicles that can run on ethanol, said Dan Becker of the Safe Climate Campaign.
From Edmunds: The 35 mpg corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standard required by for the 2016 model year doesn't equate to 35 miles per gallon in real world fuel efficiency. In fact, an analysis by Edmunds' chief test engineer shows that a car -- or truck -- would need only to achieve 26 miles per gallon combined highway and city mileage in the new Environmental Protection Agency fuel economy tests to turn in the equivalent of a 35 mpg CAFE rating. "The two numbers are so far apart that consumers and politicians are speaking different languages when they talk about fuel economy," says Dan Edmunds, director of vehicle testing at Edmunds.com. "The number on the window sticker can't be compared to the CAFE number without two levels of back-calculation that few people can follow." The disconnect occurs because the formula for figuring CAFE mileage hasn't been changed since it was first drafted in 1975. Meantime, the EPA's fuel economy labeling protocols – which started out the same as the CAFE calculations -- have been updated several times as consumers complained that the window sticker didn't accurately predict real-world mileage. Changing the EPA tests kept consumers happy, but applying the same changes to CAFE would have been a de facto boost that would have made the auto industry very unhappy. To avoid a political brouhaha, CAFE was left unaltered. Therefore, a CAFE standard of 56.2 mpg actually roughly translates to an EPA rating of 41 mpg. Even without increasing CAFE standards, car companies have increased their fuel-economy performance. Although CAFE standards for passenger cars stayed the same from 1990 to 2010 at 27.5mpg, actual CAFE performance went from 28.0 mpg to 33.7 mpg in that same period.
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