State of the Union August 8, 2015

State of the Union

August 8, 2015 online at www.uawlocal2250.com

• The annual Union Picnic will be Sunday, August 16 at the Union Hall (1395 East Pearce Blvd., Wentzville). Time is noon to 5:00 pm with activities beginning at 1:00 pm. There will be a professional DJ, a food station including hot dogs and hamburgers, face painting, bounce house and other activities for all ages. There will also be attendance prizes and raffles. Bring a lawn chair and your badge or Union card to get into the picnic.

• Attention Bowlers: Anyone interested in bowling in a mixed couples league, consisting of 2 men and 2 women, every Sunday at 6 pm at Frontier Lanes in O’Fallon MO can attend an informational meeting that will be held Sunday, August 16, 6:30 pm at Frontier Lanes. If you have any questions, you can call Chuck Haller at 314-808-8191 or Bill Loretto at 636-699-3532. Come on and join the fun!

• Car and Driver is reporting that the rumored production of the Hyundai Santa Cruz unibody pickup is getting closer to being a reality. You may recall that the concept truck (if you can call it that) was unveiled at the Detroit auto show in January. Encouraged by the “good response” Hyundai began studying the possibility of production. Stymied by the 25% tariff on imported trucks known as the “chicken tax” (the same tax that protects our truck market and the Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement looks to eliminate), Hyundai is looking at building a second US assembly plant to produce SUVs and possibly the Santa Cruz. From Car and Driver: According to Hyundai Motor America’s CEO, Dave Zuchowski, the U.S. Hyundai team expects the Santa Cruz to be approved by the Korean mother ship this November. The overwhelmingly positive public reaction to the Santa Cruz helped Hyundai America build the case, and the automaker’s shifting of several manufacturing facilities from building cars to building crossovers (and additional factories sprouting up globally) will help carve out the necessary production capacity.

• From the Detroit Free Press: The UAW knows Ford is earning record profits in North America, but does not plan to use that as an opportunity to extract unreasonable raises in contract discussions this year. UAW Vice President Jimmy Settles said Thursday the union needs to remember that the companies that employ union members must be able to remain healthy for years to come. "What we do is negotiate smart. We don’t negotiate for today. We negotiate for the future," Settles said Thursday evening. "We are not negotiating to try to put anybody out of business." Settles said the UAW also must remember that the automotive industry goes in boom-and-bust cycles. "I am saying that we (will) negotiate smart," Settles said. The UAW formally began contract talks with the Detroit Three last month. Since then, Settles said the UAW and Ford have been making progress on a number of issues in committee sessions that often start at 6 a.m. and go all day. "In our negotiations with Ford we deal with small (issues) ...and then we move up," Settles said. "We are at -- I call it the honeymoon stage -- we are getting the low-hanging fruit."

• We’ve all heard rumors that the Chevy Trailblazer SUV, which is built and sold overseas on the Colorado platform, will be produced here sometime in the future. But this is looking less likely in the near term. Automotive News reports that General Motors plans to add a new Chevy crossover that will be slotted above the compact Equinox and below the full-size Traverse, according to three people familiar with the plan. And it will require GM to make some adjustments. Step one will be to downsize the popular Equinox. It will shrink a bit when the next generation appears in early 2017, shifting to the same global compact platform that will underpin the redesigned Chevy Cruze and Opel Astra cars, due out early next year.
That creates more room for the new three-row crossover to slide in between the Equinox and the Traverse, which also is scheduled for a redesign, in mid-2017. The new vehicle will be a short-wheelbase version of the Traverse, the sources said. It's unclear what the three-row vehicle will be named when it goes on sale, tentatively scheduled for the second half of 2017, the sources said. A GM spokesman declined to comment. The shorter wheelbase also will underpin the successor to the Cadillac SRX, called XT5, when it arrives by next spring. And it will serve as the bones for the next-gen GMC Acadia, which will shrink to a three-row midsize when it is launched in mid-2016, the sources said. The Traverse and Buick Enclave will remain full size. It's unclear whether GMC will continue to offer a large crossover based on that same platform after the Acadia scales down. Cadillac won't use that platform for a full-size crossover that it's working on, two of the sources said.

Tom Brune
UAW Communications Coordinator
Wentzville Assembly
636-327-2119