Thread: UAW Local fights Chrysler

UAW Local fights Chrysler
Layoffs break new contract, union says
February 1, 2008

By TIM HIGGINS

FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER

UAW Local 412 leaders claim Chrysler LLC broke their new labor agreement when it laid off 119 workers Thursday. The union leaders vowed to fight the move, making it the first union local to go public with a labor disagreement since new contracts were signed last fall with the Detroit automakers.

More than 100 UAW members rallied at the local's Warren headquarters over the lunch hour Thursday, just hours after being told by the company that those salaried designers would be laid off indefinitely.


Advertisement

"It looks like we are at war with the company. They're doing everything wrong here," Jeff Hagler, Local 412 president, told the Free Press. "The company seems to be doing whatever they want to do and it is a slap in the face of the union. And we're going to be doing what we've got to do to take them on over it."
Chrysler officials have said the layoffs are volume-related and part of the November announcement to eliminate as many as 12,000 jobs on top of a February 2007 plan to cut 13,000 positions over three years.

"We are in accordance with the UAW agreement," said Michele Tinson, a Chrysler spokeswoman. "And we continue to address our RTP -- the recovery and transformation plan -- and volume-reduction announcement on Nov. 1."

Chrysler and the UAW are believed to still be talking about potential buyouts for the laid-off workers.

Hagler and other UAW members said Chrysler is violating the contract by laying off UAW members but keeping nonunion contract employees to do the same work. "It's not a volume reduction," he said.

Union leaders are also upset that Chrysler is employing foreign workers in Auburn Hills who were let into the country under immigration rules that allow companies to hire skilled foreigners for jobs that can't be filled with local workers.

"The only reason they're supposed to be here is to do work we can't perform," Hagler said.

Rich Harter, Local 412's second vice president and Unit 1 chairman, said he has begun the process of lodging a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board.

He said more than 150 contractors are costing the company an estimated $150,000 each annually and there are 30 to 100 so-called H1B workers.

"This isn't right. We've got American workers getting laid off but they're keeping foreigners," he said. He argues it would be cheaper for the company to use UAW members.

Hagler and Harter plan to try to get contract workers replaced by UAW members. Neither man would say if they planned to strike but Hagler told laid-off members they would get back to work "or else we're all going to go down."

Thursday's bad news was delivered to Patti Steinmayer in Conference Room 3B.

"It was devastating -- totally devastating," said Steinmayer, who lives in Rochester Hills and has worked for Chrysler for nearly 10 years. "All of these people kept coming up to my desk, and they were so heartfelt sorry to see you go, because they know you're one of the workers, you're one of the people getting the work done. And they don't want to see that happen."

Donna Friend, 51, of North Branch, who had worked on transmission design in Auburn Hills, was teary-eyed Thursday after being laid off. "It was my dream to work for Chrysler," she said. "It's still my dream to work for Chrysler. I worked hard to get there. It's a good company with good people. I enjoyed my work there. ... Right now I am stunned."

She added, "A lot of people are proud of me and now I am kind of embarrassed to be laid off."

Shawn Dempsey, 43, of Armada is worried about his family. His wife was laid off from General Motors Corp. two years ago and recently found a new job in the medical industry earning a third of what she had made.

"I never thought that it was going to happen to me because of the contract," he said.

"What makes me mad is the contractors. We're doing the same exact job as they are," he added.

Steve Droope, 49, of Sterling Heights was laid off from his designer job and now worries about the future of Michigan. "People don't want to believe this, but especially in Michigan, if the Big Three aren't working, nobody is working," said Droope, who was six days shy of having 30 years with the company.

He hopes for a buyout. "If they offer me a package while I am out ... I am going to take it. I don't want to be here anymore. It's not fun to be there anymore," he said of Chrysler. "The stress, the lies...."

Contact TIM HIGGINS at 313-222-8784 or thiggins@freepress.com.Find F

Find this article at:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti ... /802010333

Too bad the unions got so greedy and demanding, maybe the auto business would still be going full-time in Michigan.

"The only reason they're supposed to be here is to do work we can't perform," Hagler said.

And who decides whether we can do the work or not and what do they base that decision on? LIES!

Unions are needed to balance the wages of workers. If we had no unions, those employess working on cars wouldn't be even earning livable wages. Non-union construction workers are proof of this and so is the early 20th century.

As a former union member myself, I can tell you that the unions must learn to operate in a more compromising, less corruptive mode of operation. They have for too long dictated to manufacturers how they will be compensated. There should be no guarantee of employement but there should be provisions for longivity when it comes to layoffs. Employers need to retain the right to expand and contract their work forces when needed.

"The only reason they're supposed to be here is to do work we can't perform," Hagler said

As with everything....there are too many loop holes in our laws to where a company has a ton of "outs" in spite of a law set to protect us. It has been going on with ease in low paying jobs for years and years. Tons of ways to fire you unfairly, keep you from qualifying for un-employment, qualifying for insurance, getting out of paying for pensions, making the un-employment check as small as possible by "planning" your layoff for the quarter, hiring and firing within the "trial" period, using an employment company to bi-pass other laws and responsibilities......you name it...there's a way around it. Heck I've worked in places where you aren't supposed to know peoples names...they are a number.....they watch you and if they find you getting too chummy with other employees or find you are associating in off hours they change your schedual so no-one gets close enough to ever have a group compare notes to join together and fight the un-fairness. So it's always the one loan disgruntled employee. No one will ever stand with them because it means their job. Even if someone has the money to hire an attorney.....the companies always have an unlimited supply of funds to drag it out forever. Many never fight it at all because it's just a minimum wage job.....gotta eat so you let it go. Another move is "verbal agreements" made in private to where there's no witness or no record of the talk. Ask for the agreement to be written and you have sealed your exit as a "problem maker". They enforce their "policies" randomly or have them so vague it really isn't clear what they are. Your word against theirs........

This new visa business is just another ploy in their game. You not only risk loosing a job.....you fear being deported too.....what control.