Business First of Buffalo - by Thomas Hartley
Frustration is turning to anger in the ranks of hourly workers at General Motors Co.’s Lockport plant, formerly Delphi Thermal Systems.
The cause is GM’s attempt to gain contract concessions from the United Auto Workers union and its members.
“Definitely there is frustration on the floor. And some are angry, yes. We took a pretty good pay hit a couple years ago,” said Gordie Fletcher, president of UAW Local 686 Unit No. 1 at Lockport.
According to Fletcher, GM wants members to forego a 3.75 percent cost-of-living raise that was scheduled to go into effect in January but which has not been paid.
Also drawing workers’ ire are bonuses that the union says salaried workers have received.
“We don’t think that’s fair. They’re rewarding one group and taking away from another. There should be shared sacrifice,” Fletcher said.
Increasing the frustration is the absence of any new work being assigned to Lockport.
“We want work brought into the plant and aren’t seeing it. Nothing is being said other than that we could have the opportunity to bid on new work – nothing, though, about when or anything else,” Fletcher said.
“That adds to our immense sense of frustration,” he added.
Simmering situation
Anger reportedly is simmering in the ranks of the UAW at the four former Delphi Corp. plants that, like Lockport, reverted to GM in 2009 as part of Delphi’s restructuring out of bankruptcy protection.
Much of the opposition comes from workers at plants in Lockport and Rochester, and Saginaw and Grand Rapids, Mich., where UAW members say they are being pushed to renegotiate a contract that included concessions they signed only last year.
“We haven’t seen anything in writing yet, but we know they’re coming for us again,” a GM worker from Grand Rapids recently told a Detroit-based freelance reporter. “We also know they want a ‘no strike’ clause.”
Negotiations (on the concessions) are continuing at each of the plants “a couple times a week and sometimes daily – but there has been very little headway. Actually, I’d classify it as no headway,” Fletcher said.
Unlike previous years, when plants were covered by an industrywide contract negotiated with the Detroit automakers, each former Delphi plant now is responsible for its own labor agreement. The current contract expires in 2011.
A GM spokesman said discussions between GM and the UAW are ongoing and further details are unavailable.
http://buffalo.bizjournals.com/buffalo/stories/2010/03/01/daily28.html
