Detroit Free Press
By Katie Merx
May 21, 2008
General Motors Corp. could be producing its hot-selling Chevrolet Malibu in full force again by the end of the week following the news late Tuesday night that the automaker had reached a tentative agreement with the UAW local in Kansas City, Kan.
Separately, GM told UAW members nationally that they would get less pay when they can't work because their factory has been idled -- prompting some workers to retire rather than wait for work.
Both GM and UAW Local 31 in Kansas, which went on strike May 5, confirmed the deal late Tuesday. The local labor contract must be ratified by the local's 2,500 or so members to take effect.
"GM and UAW Local 31 have reached a tentative agreement on a new local labor contract," GM spokesman Dan Flores said. "We're pleased that we've reached this."
Officials at the Kansas City local confirmed Tuesday night that the local would vote between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. today.
A person familiar with planning at the Kansas factory said production could resume as early as Thursday. Workers would then be paid for the holiday weekend.
GM's Kansas City Assembly plant makes both the Malibu and the Saturn Aura. It was one of two GM locals to strike over local contract issues this year. GM's Lansing Delta Township crossover plant went on strike April 17 and ratified an agreement last week. That plant resumed work Monday and workers were promised bonuses as part of the new local contract.
Both locals were believed to have leverage in talks with the company because they make vehicles in two of the only U.S. automotive segments that are growing in a slumping market: cars and crossovers.
Some analysts had speculated that the UAW locals led their members out on strike to put pressure on GM to force a deal between supplier American Axle & Manufacturing Inc. and the UAW. The UAW has been on strike against the supplier for three months. It reached a tentative agreement late last week and is holding ratification votes through Thursday. GM has provided more than $200 million to facilitate that deal.
UAW leaders and members have said the strikes were purely about local issues.
UAW Local 31 President Jeff Manning has said the Kansas City strike was primarily about seniority rights for workers in that plant.
In another union matter, GM sent the workers in its controversial jobs bank home this week and reduced their pay, just days before most GM workers must choose whether to accept a buyout or retirement offer.
UAW members assigned to the remaining jobs bank will no longer need to clock in -- nor will they continue to receive 100% of their pay for jobs that GM has eliminated.
Workers who spoke to the Free Press on Tuesday said they were shocked by the move that cuts their pay by 15%.
"This was a surprise to all of us," said Larry Rector, 60, a skilled-trades electrician who has been in the jobs bank for the shuttered plant in Muncie, Ind., for two years. "Our chairman came in and said to go home."
The change spurred him to take an early-retirement offer, he said.
As of Monday, GM's jobs bank ceases to have physical locations, and the prospects of reassignment have been reduced.
But GM spokesman Flores said it was allowed by the national contract.
"Any actions related to jobs banks are certainly in accordance with the UAW-GM national agreement," Flores said.
There is a brief, one-sentence mention in the 24-page handout the UAW provided to its members last September, in advance of ratification votes, that says, "In certain circumstances the national parties may agree that placement on protected status at the 85% rate is mandatory."
A UAW spokesman declined to comment.
Workers say it was first presented as a voluntary option. Some suspect the move to make it mandatory is intended to push more people to take one of the automaker's buyout or early-retirement offers.
Sean McAlinden, chief economist at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, said that's possible. He said GM would like to get about 25,000 members of its workforce to take the buyout or retirement offers.
Most workers must decide whether to accept an offer by Thursday. Workers at plants in Pontiac, Pittsburgh and Ft. Wayne, Ind., will have until May 29 to decide.
