Saving Money, Saving Time
at Kenosha Engine

UAW Local 72 shows DaimlerChrysler how it's done in Wisconsin

Photo: Don Emmerich

Pipefitters Gary Mutchler, left, and apprentice Thomas Nighbor install insulation on pipes going to a cooler.

When DaimlerChrysler needed to install the complex machinery for the new 3.5-liter engine line at its Kenosha Engine Plant in Wisconsin, it first looked for outside contractors instead of using its UAW skilled-trades workers.

DaimlerChrysler didn’t want the responsibility for installing the new line, said John Drew, president of UAW Local 72. It merely wanted a “turn-key” installation; that is, the equipment is installed and ready to go. DaimlerChrysler presented Local 72 with a variety of reasons for using outside contractors, including its position that its skilled-trades workers were already fully utilized and that the UAW didn’t have the people with skills capable of doing or supervising the work.

“Their argument was that the project was too big,” said Curt Wilson, shop chair and skilled-trades committeeperson. But persistence paid off and now skilled-trades workers are finishing up the installation of the machinery needed to produce the engine.

“We just kept nibbling and nibbling and nibbling away,” Wilson said. “We got the whole job and we’re wrapping it up now.

We’re going to be on time and on schedule.”

The result? A savings of $9.6 million for DaimlerChrysler and a line that has a lot of bugs worked out before it starts churning out engines for the new Chrysler Pacifica in September, officials at the local said.

Union officials told the plant’s managers the installation work had historically been union at the century-old plant, which produced vehicles for Nash and American Motors before being acquired by Chrysler. And the skilled-trades workers know that correcting installation problems before the line is operating is more efficient than having the contractor repeatedly return to the plant to work them out.

“We hold their feet to the fire and say, ‘We need to change this, and we need to expedite and install the machine correctly because we’re going to be the ones living with it,’ ” Drew said.
DaimlerChrysler relented and skilled-trades workers began installing the equipment for the 3.5-liter engine in October 2000. The plant, which has 1,400 UAW members, already makes the inline 6-cylinder 4.0-liter engine for the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Wrangler and the 2.7-liter V6 for Chrysler passenger cars.

The installation by Local 72 was led by Drew; Wilson; Tim Plzak, Keith Lindquist and Todd Elsen, millwright coordinators; Scott Johnson, sheet metal coordinator; Bruce Schmoldt, skilled trades chief steward; Andrew Martin, Richard Schend and Mike Smith, electrical coordinators, and Larry G. Pier and Scott Quilling, pipefitter coordinators.

Nearly 100 skilled-trades workers each week worked in two 12-hour shifts on the project. The local has 370 skilled-trades workers, including seven apprentices each who put time in on the project, Drew said.

Wilson said the experience was invaluable to the apprentice electricians, pipefitters and millwrights.

At the other end of the spectrum, the union insisted that DaimlerChrysler make use of the skilled-trades project coordinator classification that was negotiated in the 1999 UAW-DaimlerChrysler National Agreement. The project coordinator acts as a bridge between management, the skilled-trades workers and the manufacturers of the machinery, Wilson said.

Getting another engine line and having the skilled-trades workers install it was a morale booster for the Kenosha plant, which has lost 5,000 jobs and its vehicle assembly operations since 1988.

“This a whole new installation for this engine,” Drew said. “All the equipment that was put in here was brought in from all over the world.”

Wilson said Local 72’s persistence in claiming the work may help other units at DaimlerChrysler plants. He believes DaimlerChyrsler officials will now first ask if their own skilled-trades workers can do the job.

“The results of what we did here are going to give them a big shot in the arm,” he said.

And in Kenosha, they will continue to demand that plant officials continue to send the work their way.

“The company will not have any basis for an argument when we get another project,” Wilson said. “We can do it.”