Hard work remains for GM, Locals

Tough issues unresolved by national deal must be solved at each factory.

Sharon Terlep / The Detroit News

Local contract talks at dozens of General Motors Corp. factories nationwide are being held up over thorny issues left unresolved by the automaker’s new labor pact with the United Auto Workers.

The landmark deal ratified by the UAW on Sept. 10 laid the groundwork for massive fundamental changes in compensation and employment practices for GM’s 74,000 hourly workers.

But the complex agreement didn’t spell out exactly how to put those changes in place. Many of those details are yet to be hammered out in local negotiations taking place at factories from Detroit to Delaware.

Stakes are high for those local talks. Not only will decisions made there weigh heavily on how the new labor deal is executed, but a strike even at one plant could potentially bring GM’s operations to a grinding halt.

In recent days, several local presidents have told members the local talks are dragging on with no end in sight. Only a handful of factories have agreements in place, with assembly plants in Orion Township and Lansing among them.

Union leaders from the national level are fanning out to locals across the country to address the issues.

"You’re setting precedents with these local agreements, they’re very important and they can be contentious," said labor expert Harley Shaiken of the University of California, Berkeley. "What the International wouldn’t want to see is one local going in one direction and another local going another way. There is a lot to talk about here because this is where the cars are made."

Chief among the unsettled questions is the scope and exact definition of core versus noncore jobs. The UAW agreed to a second-level of lower paid workers for those jobs considered not central to building an automobile. Core jobs pay about $28 an hour, non-core jobs start at $14 an hour.

While the national contract laid out a framework for deciding which category factory jobs fall into, significant loose ends remain. A greater level of detail is needed in defining the jobs, which can vary plant by plant. Union locals and GM also must agree on which jobs can still be hired out to contract workers.

GM also is pushing local unions hard to implement contracts with new money-saving work rules. The automaker has said it can save millions by getting plants to agree to changes such as looser job descriptions and fewer restrictions on bringing in outside labor. The union is equally determined to fight for what it sees as hard-won protections and for job security.

Other less-contentions issues also remain, such as hiring practices for the new workers who will replace veteran workers expected to leave with a new round of buyouts.

Add to that, all the matters typically handled at the local level, such as grievances against the company, and the process is shaping up to be lengthy.

Even in typical contract years, local agreements can take months to fully wrap up.

Neither side is making any predictions on a resolution this time around.

"Local negotiations are continuing at a very slow pace," wrote Al Benchich, president of Local 909 in Warren, in a union newsletter.

A major reason for the holdup is that the UAW national leadership considers the issues too significant to be handled solely at the local level; yet national leaders are tied up with talks at Chrysler and Ford.

"There are some issues that our Shop Committee and Local Management are waiting for direction from the National Parties," wrote Local 1112 President Jim Graham, in a letter to his members in Lordstown, Ohio.

The Lordstown plant, which makes largely unprofitable small cars for GM, has been battling with the automaker for months over a local contract. At one point, GM temporarily halted preparations to get the plant ready for a new vehicle and local talks were stopped before the two sides returned to the bargaining table.

Industry watchers, however, say they have no reason to suspect local talks will result in a work stoppage.

Even local strikes, depending on which plant they hit, can be damaging if they stop the flow of parts to other plants or put a popular product in short supply.

The Flint strike against GM in 1998 stemmed from a conflict at the local, not national, level.

The fight, which included two Flint factories, was sparked when the UAW thought one of the plants wasn’t going to get a $200 million investment it was expecting from GM.

Within two weeks, those two factories virtually shut down the automaker.

By the time the 54-day walkout ended, it had become the priciest dispute in GM’s history, costing the automaker more than $2 billion.