Thumbs up for product guarantees, secure health care benefits
GM workers approve new pact
As more than 73,000 UAW members went on strike Sept. 24 against General Motors, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger stated the union's goal loud and clear: a settlement that would protect U.S. jobs and secure wages, pensions and benefits for active and retired workers.
“It's become apparent to us that as much as workers give, they cannot give enough,” said Gettelfinger. “As much as executives get, they cannot get enough.
“We stand ready, 24 hours a day, seven days a week to go back to the bargaining table.”
They did, and two days later, the UAW national bargaining team at General Motors reached a tentative agreement with the company in the wee hours of Sept. 26.
Over the next two weeks, UAW members at more than 80 GM facilities across the country had the chance to examine the details of the agreement.
Their verdict: Thumbs up.
“It’s a great contract when you think about the economy and the way it is today. We didn’t give up anything on health care for active members, and VEBA is a good plan for the retired members,” said Sabrina Wills, a member of UAW Local 5960 and an assembler on the chassis line at GM’s Vehicle Mfg. in Lake Orion, Mich.
The contract will deliver an estimated $13,056 for a typical UAW GM worker during the life of the four-year agreement, including signing bonuses, lump sums and projected cost-of-living allowances (COLA). The agreement also offers, for the first time, both basic benefit increases and lump-sum increases for retirees in the first year of the agreement.
Entry-level jobs in noncore work such as material movement and kitting and sequencing will now be paid under a lower wage structure, a move intended to encourage new hiring by GM.
UAW GM members ratified the new contract – which contained unprecedented job commitments from GM to build specific vehicles in specific plants – in voting completed Oct. 10.
On a crisp fall Sunday afternoon, it was “standing room only” at the UAW Local 659’s Irving Bluestone Auditorium in Flint, Mich., where 2,700 members are employed at four GM area facilities.
Huddled in the rear and along the sides of the local’s hall, most stayed for the full three-hour session, eager to get the facts and learn details of the tentative contract before ratification voting began later that week.
“Based on the misinformation we get from the news media, I'm amazed and very pleased,” said Keith Smith, 56, a 38-year UAW skilled tradesman at GM’s Flint Metal Center.
“The whole agreement is all better than I thought,” added Smith, who paid particular attention to language strengthening protections for skilled trades.
Several UAW International servicing representatives, along with Bill King, chair at Local 659 and also of the UAW GM National Negotiating Committee, gave a thorough, page-by-page explanation of the contract summary and took questions from the floor afterward.
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The UAW Chrysler national bargaining team, led by Gettelfinger and UAW Vice President General Holiefield, opened 2007 contract talks July 20 with Chrysler LLC at the company’s headquarters in Auburn Hills, Mich.
On July 23 the day began with a spirited rally by five busloads of UAW active and retired members at the UAW-GM Center for Human Resources in Detroit. It ended with a UAW news conference at Ford Motor Co. World Headquarters in Dearborn where Gettelfinger defended this union’s ongoing fight for middle-class jobs.
In between, UAW bargaining teams led by Gettelfinger and Vice Presidents Cal Rapson at GM and Bob King at Ford kicked off negotiations as well.
All three UAW national negotiating committees held bargaining sessions through July and August. As Labor Day approached and summer faded into fall, kids headed back to school.
Meanwhile, auto talks heated up as the Sept. 14 contract expiration date loomed.
Just before the expiration, the UAW named GM as its strike target, or lead company, to try and finalize a new contract with it before moving to Chrysler and Ford. On Sept. 14 the agreement was extended hourly for GM; Ford and Chrysler received indefinite extensions.
At GM, Gettelfinger and Rapson, who directs the union’s GM Department, noted the membership’s patience was wearing thin. So five days later in a Sept. 19 statement they told UAW members the union would set a strike deadline if GM negotiations didn’t progress faster.
Marathon bargaining sessions continued, but the two sides could not come to an agreement. In fact, Gettelfinger expressed “shock” and disappointment with GM’s failure to recognize UAW workers’ contributions.
So the UAW set a strike deadline: Sept. 24 at 11 a.m.
“This is our reward: a complete failure by GM to address the reasonable needs and concerns of our members,” said Rapson. “Instead in 2007 company executives continued to award themselves bonuses while demanding that our members accept a reduced standard of living.”
At 11:01 a.m. 73,000 UAW GM workers around the country officially went on strike.
“Nobody wants a strike, but there comes a time when somebody pushes you off a cliff, and that’s exactly what happened,” said Gettelfinger, flanked by the UAW GM bargaining team at a news conference at Solidarity House.
The UAW last went on strike at GM in 1998, when walkouts at two local unions in Flint crippled the company’s North American operations for seven weeks. But the union hadn’t staged a national work stoppage at GM since a 67-day strike in 1970.
The UAW president said it was significant that our union gave GM a nine-day contract extension — the longest in UAW history — to avoid a strike, a drastic step no one on the union side wanted. And he made it clear that the strike had nothing to do with the Voluntary Employee Benefit Association (VEBA) for retirees, a permissible, but not mandatory, subject of bargaining.
“I knew that Ron and Cal wouldn’t call for a strike unless they had to. Everybody realized that,” said Mike O’Rourke, UAW Local 1853 president who has 29 years at GM’s Vehicle Mfg. facility in Spring Hill, Tenn.
“I'm ready to do my duty. I am prepared to stick with my union,” said Joe Roel of UAW Local 276 on the first day of the strike. Roel has seven years of seniority at GM's Vehicle Mfg. facility in Arlington, Texas.
Two days later in the wee hours of Sept. 26, the UAW announced a tentative agreement with GM and recessed the strike.
“We’re proud of this tentative agreement, and we look forward to getting in the field and discussing it with our membership,” Gettelfinger said at a 4 a.m. news conference.
With the unanimous support of the UAW GM National Council, the sprint was on to get highlights of the new tentative agreement to the membership.
Ratification meetings were held at UAW GM locals nationwide, followed by voting which concluded Oct. 10.
When Tony Redmond heard the UAW’s tentative agreement included language about GM committing to make 3,000 temporary workers permanent, he had what some would call a defining moment.
“The first thing I thought was now my three kids can go to college," said Redmond, 27, a UAW Local 659 member who has worked for three years as a truck driver at GM’s Service Parts Operations (SPO) facility in Flint, Mich.
He never lost faith that his job would someday, somehow become full time.
“I kept telling friends here that if there's a needle in the haystack, our UAW negotiators will find it,” he added.
Antoria Fleming, also a temporary worker with three years at the same facility, had no doubts either. In fact, after the meeting she was going out to celebrate.
“I just kept telling my friends here to stay focused,” said Fleming, 27. “We work very hard as temporaries, and we're proud to be UAW. It's our time.”
Veteran electrician Jim Rubis, a UAW Local 5960 member with 37 years with GM, was looking to the future, but not just for himself.
GM’s commitment to build new products in UAW facilities will help protect middle-class manufacturing jobs in years to come, Rubis said.
“The main thing for me was securing jobs, but I’m going to be retired in the next few years,” he added. “This one’s for the young people.”
