August 16, 2012 online at www.uawlocal2250.com
• There has been some misunderstanding about the use of VR time during the shutdown for those who have just 40 hours. Per the vacation application guidelines, “Employees entitled to 40 hours of vacation entitlement may chooseeither to use such hours or be placed on an unpaid leave of absence during the entire shutdown period.”
• Tickets for a 50-50 raffle to support the SOS ride this Saturday will go on sale Thursday. Trustee Wanda Richard will be in the cafeteria at first break and then on the shop floor selling tickets on first shift and Kim Davis will be selling tickets on 2nd shift. Also, SOS t-shirts will be on sale today in the cafeteria.
• Reminder: The 7th annual SOS – Support our Soldiers – motorcycle ride and rally will be next Saturday, Aug. 18. Registration will begin at 9 am at the Union Hall with the last bike out at 11am. Cost is $20 per bike, $5 per passenger and $5 for each extra hand. The ride ends at Crazy Horse Saloon in Wentzville at 6 pm. All bikes and cages (cars) are welcome. Proceeds will benefit Operation Homefront. If you have any questions you can contact Steve Melson at 636-262-1234.
• Hybrid full-size pickups and SUV’s have been in GM’s lineup for several years now, but you’d never know it reading this article from Wards Auto: The ultimate goal of a partnership formed last year between Fordand Toyotais a hybrid-electric fullsize pickup, says a high-ranking Ford engineer.“The nut we’re trying to crack is how do we do an F-150 hybrid?” Kevin Layden, Forddirector-electrification programs and engineering, tells WardsAutoat a media backgrounder here. “We’re working with (Toyota) and developing plans.” The auto makers last year inked an agreement to jointly develop rear-wheel-drive hybrid-electric powertrains, noting increasing fuel efficiency of light-duty pickups and SUVs is imperative to remaining viable in a U.S. market facing increasingly stringent government emissions and mileage regulations. The partners hope to mitigate costs and increase speed-to-market of new products. Work with Toyota is ongoing, Layden says, but he declines to reveal when a production vehicle may result from the tie-up. There are several obstacles confronting engineers, Layden says, including how to ensure a fuel-efficient electrified powertrain can handle the workload and durability demands of pickup and SUV buyers. “Everyone wants to tow with a truck, and that’s a duty cycle that really taxes the battery and electric motor” he says. “We have to figure out how you maximize that and still get the fuel economy.”
• Toyota has finally gotten on the electric vehicle bandwagon with an EV version of the compact SUV RAV4. The battery pack is supplied by Tesla, so it now appears that Toyota can do neither a hybrid electric full size pickup or a dedicated electric vehicle without considerable assistance. The RAV4 gas version starts at $22,650. The electric version? $49,800! For that you get, according to Wards Auto, “base-model-like bargain accoutrements: unappealing plastic trim on the instrument panel and door inners and fake-leather seating.”
• From Autoblog: Here's a shocking statistic: The United States has fewer cars per capita than Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Belgium, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and 16 other countries. Even more dramatic is one of the potential causes: A declining American middle class. According to an Atlantic report on a new study conduct by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, we're ranked just 25th in the world in per-person car ownership. The actual number stands at 439 cars per 1,000 Americans. Further, the U.S. is an outlier when you compare the number of vehicles per capita to household consumption. While we have one of the highest rates of household spending, car buying is in decline here. It is this disparity that points to the widening income gap in the U.S. as a potential cause of our low rate of car ownership. Indeed, car ownership rates track with the size of a nation's middle class, according to the report.
• From Automotive News: Opel is in talks with the IG Metall union and worker representatives to shorten working hours at its main German plant in Ruesselsheim, near Frankfurt. "Due to the deteriorating market situation in Europe, the management of Adam Opel AG is negotiating the subject of short time working and working hour reduction in Ruesselsheim with the works council and IG Metall," the money-losing General Motors subsidiary said in a statement on Thursday. The statement said the sides expect to reach an agreement quickly. Media reports cited company sources as saying Opel was also considering shortened working hours at its engine plant in Kaiserslautern, Germany. Ruesselsheim is Opel's main production hub and currently produces the Astra compact and Insignia mid-sized models. The carmaker has previously said that production of the next-generation Astra will be done at plants in the UK and Poland in 2015. If management and labor representatives agree to shorten working hours for the plant's staff, Opel can apply for subsidies under the German government's short-work program, called Kurzarbeit. The scheme was used by many struggling companies in the 2008-2009 recession, allowing them to preserve jobs by cutting the hours of employees when usage of plants was low, while having the government compensate workers for part of their lost wages. At the height of the last global financial crisis, more than 1.4 million workers in Germany received money under the program. While recent data shows only about 80,000 people were receiving such assistance in May of this year, several companies have had to seek government subsidies in recent months.
Tom Brune
UAW/GM Communications Coordinator
Wentzville Assembly
636-327-2119
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