August 24, 2011 online at www.uawlocal2250.com
From Chairman Mike Bullock: The National Agreement on Page 242 details management's right to require employees to work daily overtime past 11 hours during model change. Management can work us past 11 hours two weeks before model change (August 17) and for the week it launches the new model and three weeks thereafter or until the line reaches scheduled production, whichever is later (September 9). The additional overtime this week has been due to breakdowns in the glass area.
This year’s Labor Day Parade will be Monday, Sept. 5 with the theme of “We Are One”. The UAW location in the parade lineup is 8th. Line up begins at 7 am on 18th Street north of Olive Street where we will decorate the float. All are invited including friends and family.
From the Flint Journal: Saturday work is about to gear up at General Motors' Flint Assembly plant even as the company reins in production at its truck plant in Indiana. Workers at Flint Assembly have been told to expect to work five Saturdays in the next two months because of high demand for 2012 heavy- and light-duty Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups. The Saturday shifts will continue in addition to the start of a new, permanent third shift that started Sunday night. "We are trying to manage the total number of trucks (in inventory), and we need to make sure we have the right mix of trucks," said Jim Cain, a General Motors spokesman. "The pickup truck market is complex because of different bed and cab configurations." Flint Assembly, the city's last remaining GM assembly plant, will operate Sept. 10 and 24, and Oct. 1, 15, and 22, according to a notice sent to employees last month. Cain confirmed that GM is simultaneously adding the Saturday shifts here and extending a temporary shutdown of its Fort Wayne, Ind., area truck plant. Like Flint, that plant builds the Silverado and Sierra but it will close the last week of 2011 and the first week of 2012, according to this online report in Transport Topics. Saturday shifts at the plant have already been canceled for the year, the same report said. Cain said the difference in plans for the two plants is a simple difference in the type of trucks each produce. "It's not unusual that not every plant builds every (variation)," Cain said. The GM spokesman said the automaker not only wants to end this year with approximately 200,000 trucks in inventory -- equal to a 90-day supply -- it also wants to have every vehicle type available in sufficient numbers.
From Edmunds: Several participants at a session at the Center for Automotive Research Management Briefing Seminars earlier this month dissected the possibilities for the 2011 contract talks and settled on these probable primary aspects: the UAW will pursue an increase in the number of jobs – UAW membership has sunk to a 70-year low of around 111,000 – and better wages and benefits for all workers after a historic contract provision in 2007 that provided for a lower wage for new workers. The automakers want to retain their new, more-competitive labor-cost structure and increased operating and work-rule flexibility. One solution both the UAW and the automakers seem to agree could be an answer: more-generous and wider-ranging profit-sharing schemes. The groundbreaking two-tier wage structure agreed to in the 2007 UAW-Detroit Three contract has been the subject of endless discussion, but few organized-labor experts expect whatever accord comes this year to backtrack on that historic point. Newly-hired UAW workers are paid about $15-17 per hour, while more seasoned workers make about $28 per hour or more before benefits, but there are specific and complex limitations on the ratio of new, lowered-paid workers each automaker’s assembly plants can employ – and currently, only a small portion of the UAW’s rank and file are paid at the lower wage level. Nonetheless, hourly labor costs in 2010 were $20 to $29 lower than in 2006, said Kristin Dzicezek, CAR’s labor and industry group director, a substantial figure that still could not keep GM and Chrysler from bankruptcy court in 2009. Most experts now speculate the UAW will seek to bring these new entry-level workers to a higher overall pay by seeking more-remunerative profit-sharing provisions in the 2011 contract. Union president Bob King was quoted by the New York Times as saying the automakers should improve their profit-sharing formulas. At the CAR conference earlier this month, several auto-company executives mentioned “flex pay” in seemingly positive terms. Whatever the eventual structure, King is adamant that the Detroit auto companies are rebounding and everybody should be working to ensure an agreement that improves overall pay. “I don’t think you should be working in the auto industry at poverty-level wages when the companies are doing well,” King was quoted by the NYT, while also telegraphing in no uncertain terms that the UAW’s era of givebacks has come to an end. “There is no justification for any concessions in this round of bargaining. That is just not going to happen,” King insisted.
From the Detroit News: The most remarkable thing about this year's contract negotiations between the Detroit's Big Three automakers and the United Auto Workers is how unremarkable they are. There has been none of the usual drama, and both sides seem determined to keep it that way. UAW President Bob King said the companies and his union want to show American taxpayers that they appreciate the help they provided the industry, by negotiating win-win contracts without strikes, vitriol or eleventh-hour bargaining. King said the current system does not provide new workers with a living wage. "They're tough issues. They're complicated issues. But I'm confident that we have the history of creative problem-solving now to work through them," King said. "We've got good companies that we're dealing with…It's really important for the American public to know that both the companies and our membership really appreciate the loans that we got," King said. "We take very seriously the long-term success of these companies because of the impact it has on everybody in society." And while King has said he would like to announce an agreement with all three automakers by next month's deadline, he said it's not the most important thing. "What's more important than the deadline is a good result for our members, for the community, for creating jobs in America," he said. "We want consumers and the public to know that labor and management, community and government can all work together to make a better country — to rebuild the middle class in this country — so we do look at it as a great opportunity to demonstrate that."
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