May 30, 2012 online at www.uawlocal2250.com
From Chairman Mike Bullock: Last week the plant suffered another major breakdown on 1st and 2nd shift that lasted longer than 4 hours. Page 243 of the National Contract allows management to make up the production lost from this breakdown. Only the production lost from this specific breakdown can be made up. Management has scheduled K-line to work 11 hours on both shifts this week to accomplish this. The 11 hours plus some schedule relief and no team meetings should accomplish this. Tentatively this will keep us from having to work this Friday. Management has also informed the Union of their plans to change the 2nd shift starting time permanently to 6pm starting on June 4. June's schedule has us back on 10 hour shifts for the month. The application period for the Paragraph 96 agreement from Shreveport to Wentzville has closed. A total of 20 production employees signed up and 21 skilled trades employees signed up. Per the agreement, these employees will be able to transfer to Wentzville when openings are available.
Model change this year is scheduled for July 16. Per the National Agreement (pg. 242) the provisions of the overtime agreement restricting daily overtime and weekends is suspended “beginning on a date two weeks preceding the announced build-out date and ending on the build-out date…..(and) for the week in which it frames the first unit of a new model and for three weeks thereafter or until the line reaches scheduled production, whichever is last”.
The $1000 Inflation Protection lump sum bonus will be paid during the week ending June 10.
Reminder From the Women’s Committee: The last day to enter online for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure is June 1. The local has formed a team - the name is “UAW Local 2250” for anyone who would like to register with us and we will pick up the T-shirts and get them to everyone before the race. There will be entry forms at the doors that can be filled out and we can get them registered.
From Automotive News: The players are changing in the fleet business, especially in sales to daily rental companies. As General Motors, Ford and Hyundai-Kia back off, others are rushing in. For Nissan, Chrysler and Volkswagen, fleet is an integrated part of aggressive growth strategies, with Nissan even pushing dealers into local-level fleet deals -- so-called "fleet-tail." For Mazda and others, fleet is a lifeline to relieve bloated inventories.
Fleet is the stepchild of the auto industry. Few automakers discuss their participation, but almost everyone sells to fleet customers. Most years it's a fifth of U.S. light-vehicle sales, according to Edmunds.com, TrueCar.com and the Automotive News Data Center. Edmunds.com put 2011 fleet sales at 2.5 million units. Financial analysts see it as an unprofitable dumping ground. Not so, says Kevin Koswick, fleet boss at Ford Motor Co. "The fleet business is a profitable business" for Ford, he said in a recent interview. "All of it is profitable." Ford and GM dominate the commercial and government sectors, which Ford said in 2011 was 39 percent of total fleet business. "Everybody wants a fleet business, but not everybody can do it," he said. "Many automakers don't have the full product range, and few have the staff and expertise to run it well."
But the biggest chunk of fleet, the 61 percent of sales to daily rental companies, is drawing more import-brand competition in recent years, Koswick said. In the first four months of 2012, the total fleet mix has jumped for Toyota, Mazda, Nissan and Volkswagen brands compared with 2011 levels, TrueCar.com says, and is flat or falling for Ford, Chevrolet, Dodge, Hyundai and Kia. Nissan North America is a prime example of a company using fleet in an aggressive push to boost total U.S. sales. The past 16 months, fleet has grown even faster than retail. The fleet mix this year is 23 percent, up from 13 percent for all of 2010, according to the Automotive News Data Center. Volkswagen Group of America also is using fleet in its ambitious drive to more than double U.S. sales by 2018, to 800,000 for VW and 200,000 for Audi. By Edmunds.com's count, VW group's fleet mix more than doubled, from 10.4 percent in 2008 to 23 percent in the first two months of this year. After heavy reliance on fleet sales to survive after its bankruptcy, Chrysler Group has slashed fleet volume. In 2011 it cut fleet volume by 4 percent, while retail sales jumped 43 percent. In four months this year, fleet sales are up 27 percent but retail volume is even loftier: 37 percent higher. Toyota Motor Sales has increased its fleet mix sharply this year. Fleet is 15 percent of the mix through April, compared with full-year figures of 8 percent in both 2010 and 2011.
From the Montgomery Advertiser: As of early last week, nearly 20,000 people have applied for the 877 new jobs that Montgomery’s Hyundai plant created to add a new production shift. And the applications are still coming. The deadline to apply is June 2, but Hyundai was so overwhelmed by the initial response that they suspended the application process on May 18 because of the high volume. Last week, HMMA issued a statement saying that it would reopen the application procedure through June 2 but warned that anyone who applies after May 18 may not have time to be processed. Gordy said later applicants will be seen “as needed” for future hires. Of the 18,500 applicants, who were in the system by May 22, an estimated 6,000 to 7,000 will make it to the assessment stage. Some get that chance immediately, while others are banked” to be assessed later. HMMA will then send the top remaining candidates through a pre-employment screening process and offer them a job.
Tom Brune
UAW/GM Communications Coordinator
Wentzville Assembly
636-327-2119
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