Growing the Salaried bargaining Unit

New customer call center jobs

After extensive discussions, the company agreed that as the current third-party commercial agreements expire, Chrysler will consider in-sourcing a service contract customer call center to the Office and Clerical Salaried Bargaining Unit. The move could return up to 200 jobs to the salaried bargaining unit.

The company will provide the third party commercial agreement contract expiration dates to the president of UAW Local 889.

SBU gains “Neutrality” letter

The union has been approached on numerous occasions by salaried non-union employees inquiring about how to join the UAW. The union was successful in negotiating a salary “neutrality” letter with the company. This letter conveys that the company will remain neutral in a salaried employee union organizing drive, will give the union access to these employees and will send them a copy of a letter recognizing “that it is in our mutual interest (company) to respect a decision by our employees who wish to seek union representation” and “that there will be no negative consequences for employees who exercise their rights to support union representation.”

Sourcing administration

Our bargaining team entered this set of negotiations knowing that outsourcing discussion and notification in the areas of engineering, office and clerical was not functioning properly. The union made the point that by the time the notification was received at the national level, the design and engineering work had already been outsourced. The company has now agreed to engage our union leadership at the unit level. Updates to the current sourcing administration manual will also reflect involving our International UAW Salaried Coordinator throughout the development process.

Bargaining unit insourcing review

During these negotiations, the UAW identified hundreds of specific work assignments throughout the salaried work areas that the union recognizes as bargaining unit work that is currently being performed by contractors and other non-union employees. The company has agreed to hold bi-weekly meetings with the vice president and director of the UAW Chrysler Department or his designee, the director of Union Relations and the appropriate management personnel to review these work assignments. Where this work can be performed competitively, the work will be returned to the union and the required manpower will be hired.

Temporary employee health care

During this round of negotiations our Salary Bargaining Unit Team faced many challenges, and one that we never faced before, representing dues-paying Salary Temporary employees. The negotiators tackled the issues of representation and benefits, and the proposed new agreement delivered on both. A Supplemental Agreement (S-2) was crafted which defines employment rights, and Letter 13 which provides entitlement to much needed health care coverage. Features of the health care coverage are as follows:

Upon ratification of the proposed agreement all Temporary Salary employees currently on roll shall be eligible for medical coverage on the first day of the eighth month of service. The employee will be automatically enrolled in the Standard Care Network (SCN) Medical Plan which includes Hospital, Surgical, Medical, Hearing, and Prescription Drugs. The employee must contact Benefits Express to enroll eligible dependents.

Current Temporary Salary employees on roll at the time of ratification, who have not reached eight months of active service at the point of ratification, will be included in the enhanced coverage the beginning of January 2012.

Any future Temporary employees shall be governed by the language in the National Agreement Letter 13 and Supplement Agreement S-2.