June 14, 2012 online at www.uawlocal2250.com
Now that management has announced that we will be working under “Plan B” for the 2013 model year (beginning July 16), several questions have come up. For starters, “Plan B” is a 5-day work week and per the National Agreement, “daily hours in excess of 10 hours worked per shift and Saturday hours in excess of 8 hours per shift will be voluntary” (except, of course, in the case of single breakdowns of four hours or more). Can we switch back and forth between this and other operating plans? “Local Plant Management will make an election once each model year to schedule overtime operations in accordance with Plan A or Plan B”. And once the 3-week post-model change period is up, management can schedule Saturdays until they are exhausted, even if it means 6 in a row. (Remember, we’re talking model year, not calendar year, so if all 6 are used in 2012, no more can be scheduled until after next model change. We are unaware of any being tentatively scheduled yet.) Can we really build many more vans on this schedule as opposed to the schedule we are on now? Actually, yes. Assuming no downweeks and the model year running equivalent to a calendar year, we could produce 163,000 vans with a 9.6 schedule off of K-line (for 2012 model year we will build 112,469 vans). Of course we know there will be a month off later this summer and the first 2 weeks of January are tentatively scheduled downweeks as well. And there is downtime tentatively scheduled next summer (length and dates still to be determined). Bottom line, this change will maximize the production we can get from a 2-shift operation, which is why we ran under this plan for several years when we were selling 150,000+ vans annually. There are also questions about vacation days for individuals – hours charged, how to handle Saturdays etc. - that are being worked out. When those issues are resolved we will let you know.
FYI – all of your Benefits Representatives will be attending a conference next week and will be out of the plant the entire week.
Reminder: Union Meeting will be the last Wednesday of June (the 27th) this month due to scheduling conflicts for many of the Executive Board members. There will also be no Union meeting in July unless there is membership action.
From the Chaplaincy Committee: “Fathers” have a happy and blessed Father’s Day. May you excel in Fatherhood.
From Automotive News: General Motors and German labor union IG Metall have given themselves four months to hammer out a definitive plan to restructure the loss-making operations of Opel, the U.S. carmaker's European brand. "The aim of the negotiations is to create a road map for Opel through 2016 and even beyond. I can tell you that labor is absolutely determined to reach a fair deal," Oliver Burkhard, a senior IG Metall official, said. GM, IG Metall and Opel's labor leaders said on Wednesday that they were in talks over a plan to end production at the company's Bochum plant at the end of 2016 in exchange for guaranteeing all German jobs to the end of that period. "We are unlikely to have certainty by the end of October whether Bochum will be closed. But we still have a good four years until then, and when I think about all the things that have changed in the past four years, then nothing is written in stone," Burkhard said, adding that talks could begin in earnest because the right people were finally sitting at the table. "It makes no sense to discuss with the German management what GM's overall strategy is for Opel," he said. "Thankfully, we got what we wanted and General Motors, the parent, is negotiating with us directly, so we now have a greater certainty than before when it comes to agreements." IG Metall is offering to defer a wage increase if GM considers shifting the manufacture of some of the 160,000 vehicles it makes overseas and imports to Europe. "The Chevrolet Orlando that is built in Korea shares the same underpinnings as the Zafira built in Bochum, for example," Burkhard said.
From Reuters: General Motors Co, which said this month it would shut down an assembly line at an Ontario plant, still wants to keep production in Canada, its chief executive said on Tuesday. But he cautioned that high manufacturing costs in Canada mean upcoming contract talks with the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) union will be tough. Canada is now the most expensive place in the world to assemble a motor vehicle, GM CEO Dan Akerson said, adding that the company's investments must make economic sense. Asked if the planned closure next year of an assembly line employing about 2,000 workers at GM's Oshawa, Ontario, plant was a sign of what could happen if unionized Canadian workers take a hard line in contract negotiations, Akerson said: "Everything's in the mix. They're an important part of our manufacturing footprint in North America, in the globe, and we'd like to keep it that way." Although Canadian plants are expensive, they are "very high quality, very high productivity and the workers are very dedicated employees," Akerson told reporters ahead of GM's annual shareholders meeting in Detroit. "They know they have a cost differential vis-a-vis the U.S. or Mexico in North America," he said.
From the Detroit News: A trade group representing Detroit's Big Three automakers expressed concern that an adviser to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney supports Japan's entry into a Pacific free-trade agreement. Former Commerce Secretary Carlos Guttierez, a trade adviser to GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, recently said the Obama administration should include Japan, Canada and Mexico in the talks. The Trans-Pacific Partnership talks currently include Australia, Chile, Peru, Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, New Zealand and Vietnam. American Automotive Policy Council President Matt Blunt said Japan should not be allowed into the Trans-Pacific Partnership. "As policymakers take a stand against unfair trade practices, they must consider Japan's notoriously closed auto market as a primary reason to disqualify them from joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership at this time," said Blunt, a former Republican Missouri governor. "Japan's status as the most closed auto market in the developed world is the reason U.S. and European automakers have independently raised concerns about their unfair trade practices and why South Korean automakers no longer attempt to sell their vehicles there." A free-trade agreement could drop tariffs on Japanese vehicles - 2.5% on cars and 25% on trucks- entering the United States and make it more economically viable to build vehicles in Japan and export them to the U.S.
Tom Brune
UAW/GM Communications Coordinator
Wentzville Assembly
636-327-2119
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