April 8, 2014 online at www.uawlocal2250.com
• Reminder: Runoff elections for Financial Secretary, Recording Secretary and Trustee are today. Polls are open until 4:30 am Wednesday morning.
• From the Women’s Committee: We will be stuffing Easter eggs this Wednesday and Thursday from 3 pm to 6:30 pm at the Union Hall. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Our annual Easter Egg Hunt will be this Sunday, April 13 at the Union Hall. Doors open at noon and the hunt will begin promptly at 2:30 pm. There will only be ONE hunt. From noon to 2:30 the Easter Bunny will be available for pictures and there will also be a balloon artist, face painting and clowns. There will also be hot dogs and soda. Bring the kids and grandkids out for a great time and bring your cameras! Hope to see you there.
• From the Veterans Committee: There will be a Veterans Committee meeting this Thursday, April 10 between shifts at the Union Hall. Also, the 26th Annual Run for the Wall will be Monday, May 19. You are invited to come and welcome more than 500 motorcycles making their way across the heartland of America to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington DC to honor the men and women still unaccounted for, from all of our wars. We will meet at the Wentzville VFW Post 5327, located on Hwy Z ½ mile south of I-70 at 6 pm. Please remember all of our Veterans and pray for the troops who are currently in harm’s way.
• The Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain with available forward collision alert technology, earned 2014 Top Safety Pick+ ratings from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the only midsize SUVs of nine evaluated to earn Good ratings in the Institute’s small overlap front crash test. The Equinox and Terrain join the 2014 Chevrolet Malibu midsize sedan in earning the institute’s highest safety rating. The test, in which 25 percent of a vehicle's front end on the driver side strikes a 5-foot-high rigid barrier at 40 mph, is designed to replicate what happens when the front corner of a vehicle strikes another vehicle or an object like a tree or a utility pole. “Having the only two midsize SUVs that earned the Top Safety Pick Plus designation speaks to GM’s focus on improving our vehicles by offering advanced crash avoidance technologies that can help avoid a crash, and by enhancing vehicle structure and occupant protection if a crash occurs,” said Gay Kent, director of General Motors Global Safety Strategy and Vehicle Programs. “We are very pleased that the IIHS has recognized the safety of both the Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain with this prestigious rating.”
• From the Detroit Free Press: Daimler is hoping its updated Mercedes/Freightliner Sprinter will hold off competition from Ford and Chrysler in the competitive and profitable commercial van segment. The third-generation 2014 Mercedes Sprinter, shipped in kit-form from Germany and assembled at the Freightliner plant in Charleston, S.C., faces a new round of competition that looks strikingly similar to what it faced more than a decade ago. Ford is replacing the E-Series that accounts for 51% of the market with the European Transit after spending $1.1 billion to retool its Kansas City plant to build the full-size van. Chrysler is selling the Ram ProMaster. Nissan entered the segment in 2011 with the NV cargo van it builds in Canton, Miss. “A major change is happening,” Glaser said. “Core competitors are updating their fleets to Euro-style vans.” General Motors will be alone in offering traditional American styling with the Chevrolet Express and GMC Savana. The 2014 model, starting at $37,000, has a new grille and flat hood, new safety features to assist with parking, staying in the lane, blind-spot detection, counteracting strong wind and avoiding collisions. The infotainment system has a better screen, navigation and Bluetooth, said Antje Williams, Sprinter brand manager. Mercedes added a new 4-cylinder diesel engine and 7-speed transmission which will offer 18% better fuel economy than the 6-cylinder diesel and 5-speed transmission that will continue to be offered for an extra $910. Starting early next year, Mercedes will offer four-wheel drive for the first time in the U.S.
• From the AP: Expansion talks at Volkswagen's lone U.S. plant have ground to a halt amid disagreements about the role of organized labor at the factory in Tennessee. Labor representatives on Volkswagen's supervisory board were "indignant at the strong attempts made by outside forces to influence the outcome" of the vote, Bernd Osterloh, the head the company's global works council, said in a letter read to all the workers at the Chattanooga plant 10 days after the vote. "Local Republican politicians such as Mr. Corker and (Gov) Mr. Haslam interfered outrageously with the ballot," said Osterloh, who reiterated the company position that only economic factors would decide whether the plant would be expanded. "We want you to see that people like Mr. Corker can have no influence over the decisions made by an international group," Osterloh added. By German law, labor representatives make up half of the company's 20-member supervisory board, meaning they have veto power over major management initiatives including the expansion or construction of plants.
• From Automotive News: The average fuel economy of new U.S. light vehicles sold in March rose to 25.4 mpg, according to University of Michigan researchers, the highest since they began collecting data in October 2007. The 25.4 mpg figure is up 0.3 mpg from the revised figure for February and 5.3 mpg from the October 2007 average, a monthly report from the university's Transportation Research Institute said. Average sales-weighted fuel economy was calculated using the monthly sales of individual models and the combined city-highway fuel economy ratings from the EPA Fuel Economy Guide for each model. In a separate study, fuel consumption by American drivers was found to be 11 percent lower in 2012 than in 2004. The reduction, said researcher Michael Sivak, "reflects the decline in distance driven and the improvement in vehicle fuel economy." He said: "The combined evidence from this and the previous studies indicates that -- per person, per driver and per household -- we now have fewer light-duty vehicles, we drive each of them less and we consume less fuel than in the past."
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