State of the Union October 4, 2011

Oct. 4, 2011 online at www.uawlocal2250.com

•    From Chairman Mike Bullock: The Joint 2nd shift Manpower Committee will be having a meeting in the tour holding room on Tuesday, October 4 at 3:30, 4:30 and after day shift at 5:30 to answer any further questions you may have. Also, the seniority date to hold Trim if no one transferred to second shift is 4-14-1986 and the date to hold Chassis is 9-26-1994.
•    Ford and the UAW have reached a tentative agreement. Details are still coming out, but news outlets are reporting that the signing bonus is $6000 and there will be $1500 annual inflation protection payments in lieu of COLA. There were no wage increases negotiated for traditional employees. There will also be attrition packages of $50,000 for production and $100,000 for skilled trades who are retirement eligible. The agreement also secures more than 12,000 jobs, including 7,000 previously announced - 6,250 hourly and 750 salaried - and 5,750 new jobs that will be added by the end of 2012 and pay an entry-level wage, starting at $15.51 an hour. Among the product announcements is the commitment of the Transit van to the Kansas City plant and a medium duty vehicle and frame for the Avon Lake plant that currently assembles the Econoline. It is unclear if the Econoline will still be built at that facility but there has been speculation that the Transit in all its variations will replace the Econoline.
•    From Bloomberg: Automakers, while beating estimates for industry sales, reduced spending on incentives for U.S. customers in September by 3.5 percent to an average of $2,653 per vehicle, according to Autodata Corp. Ford Motor Co. cut spending on discounts and promotions by 6.6 percent from a year earlier to an estimated $2,845 per vehicle, Autodata said Monday in an e-mailed statement. Chrysler Group's incentives fell 5.7 percent to $3,425. Nissan Motor Co. reduced discounts by 5.7 percent to $2,748. Industrywide light-vehicle sales ran at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 13.1 million in September. That's the fastest pace since April's 13.2 million and exceeds the 12.8 million rate that was the average of 14 analysts' estimates. Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co., which returned to full output last month for the first time since Japan's tsunami in March, boosted incentive spending during the month. Honda increased spending by 6 percent to $2,337 per vehicle. Toyota raised incentives 5.5 percent to an estimated $2,238, Autodata said. General Motors Co. raised incentives 1.9 percent to $3,289 per vehicle. Through September, industrywide average spending on U.S. incentives fell 9.6 percent to $2,498 per vehicle.