Chrysler Workers Veto UAW Agreement in Michigan, Missouri, Ohio
By John Lippert and Mike Ramsey Bloomberg October 20, 2007
United Auto Workers members in Michigan, Missouri and Ohio rejected an agreement with Chrysler LLC yesterday, bolstering local union opposition to a new four- year agreement.
Four of the seven UAW locals that voted Thursday and Friday rejected the proposed contract while three accepted it. The seven represent 12,596 workers, or 28 percent of Chrysler's 45,000 UAW workers. A majority must approve the accord before it can take effect. Voting runs through next week.
Opposition to the Chrysler contract began to build Monday when Bill Parker, chief of the UAW committee that negotiated it, recommended a no vote. He said he'd vote no because UAW President Ron Gettelfinger hadn't secured work for Chrysler plants as far into the future as he had at General Motors Corp.
``If the Chrysler contract is voted down, Gettelfinger has to go back to company and say, `I need more product guarantees,''' said Dan Luria, an analyst at the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center in Plymouth.
Roger Kerson, a UAW spokesman, declined to comment.
Gettelfinger and his aides belong to the Administration Caucus, a group that has controlled the union since 1946. Parker was a member of a rival group called New Directions that mounted its strongest challenge in 1989, when it sought unsuccessfully to unseat two members of the union's international executive board.
Union Fund
Dissatisfaction is growing inside the UAW because its new contracts contain concessions the union has resisted for decades, Luria said.
Among other things, the GM and Chrysler agreements create a union fund for retiree health care, instead of imposing this responsibility solely on management. Also, it will pay new workers about half as much as the current workforce. About two- thirds of GM workers approved their contract this month. The UAW patterned its Chrysler agreement after GM's, and hopes to use
the same basic approach at Ford Motor Co.
Chrysler plans new investments totaling $15 billion for 55 of its 59 UAW-represented facilities during the next four years, spokesman Mike Aberlich said in an e-mail. At GM, some UAW factories were promised they'd start building newly-designed models starting in 2013.
At UAW Local 110 at a minivan plant in St. Louis, Missouri, 79 percent of non-skilled workers who voted rejected the contract, said Lou Moye, bargaining chairman. He declined further comment. At UAW Local 122 at a stamping plant in Twinsburg, Ohio, 53 percent of those who participated voted no, according to the local's Web site.
Push Harder
At UAW Local 961 at an axle plant in Detroit, 53.5 percent of workers who voted rejected the contract, the Detroit Free Press reported.
Workers at Local 372 at an engine plant in Trenton, Michigan, and at Local 1435 at a machining plant in Perrysburg, Ohio, accepted the contract, the Free Press said, without giving vote totals.
On Thursday, UAW workers at a Dodge truck plant near St. Louis turned down the deal. Factory employees at an engine plant in Kenosha, Wisconsin, voted in favor.
The additional rejections may heighten pressure on Gettelfinger to push harder for votes.
Union ``leadership is in the field, and they will probably be all weekend long'' trying to persuade workers to ratify the deal, said analyst Sean McAlinden at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
New Owner
The contract was opposed by some negotiators who rejected it initially, the Free Press reported. It took four votes for the union's nine-member national bargaining committee on Oct. 10 to approve the settlement, the newspaper said, citing a letter posted on Local 1166 in Kokomo, Indiana, by Shawn Fain, a skilled-trades committeeman at the local. During these votes, the union staged a six-hour strike.
Parker, who chaired the committee, is also president of UAW Local 1700 at a Chrysler car assembly plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan.
Workers at UAW Local 1183 at a sport-utility vehicle assembly plant in Newark, Delaware, also voted Friday. Richard McDonaugh, the local's president, declined to comment on the results.
The ratification vote is the first for Chrysler as a closely held company. Private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP purchased a majority stake in the automaker in August from the former DaimlerChrysler AG, now Daimler AG.
In Kenosha, 82 percent of Local 72 workers voted to accept the accord, said President Dan Kirk. Meanwhile, 81 percent of Local 136 members in Fenton, Missouri, rejected it, President Jerry Dennison said in an interview.
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