Within the next few days, General Motors could let go of 275 part-time temporary employees at two of its plants if the local UAW leaders do not sign letters agreeing to keep those people as part-time temporary workers rather than making them full-time temporary workers or permanent employees.
But the shop chairmen at both facilities have told the Detroit Free Press they refuse to sign the letters as their facilities have full-time temporary or full-time permanent openings at their facilities. They contend GM could promote the part-timers to those roles.
The two plants are Fort Wayne Assembly in Indiana, where GM makes its full-size Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups, and Bowling Green Assembly in Kentucky, where GM builds the Chevrolet Corvette.
“It’s nothing but empty promises if I sign the letter,” Rich LeTourneau, shop chairman of UAW Local 2209, which represents union members at Fort Wayne Assembly, told the Free Press.
He said Fort Wayne Assembly has about 4,000 hourly workers across three shifts, building about 400 pickups per shift. Of those employees, 250 are part-time temporary employees. Since late August, he has been negotiating with GM to make those 250 people full-time temporary employees, if not permanent employees. LeTourneau believes GM wants to string them along in their part-time temporary status for as long as possible.
“The only way they are hireable (per the UAW contract) is if they become full-time temps for nine consecutive months,” LeTourneau said. “This company is never going to hire them, so if they’re not going to hire them, I’m not going to prolong their agony.”
At Bowling Green, UAW Local 2164 Chairman Jason Watson is taking the same stance when it comes to the two dozen part-time temporary employees at that plant, which employs about 1,458 people, according to GM’s website.
“As a union we’re not going to allow you to string these people along as part-time when you can make them full-time,” Watson told the Free Press.
GM’s response
For its part, GM says it is abiding by the national UAW contract language.
GM spokeswoman Tara Kuhnen sent the following statement in an email to the Free Press: “The company and UAW have been unable to reach an agreement for extending part-time temporary team members at Fort Wayne Assembly. According to the provisions of our National UAW-GM contract, without an agreement, we will be required to release about 250 temporary employees by September 30, 2024.”
As for the situation at Bowling Green, Kuhnen said in an email, “The company and UAW have been unable to reach an agreement for extending part-time temporary team members at Bowling Green Assembly. According to the provisions of our National UAW-GM contract, without an agreement, we will be required to release about 25 temporary employees by September 27, 2024.”
Watson said the 2019 UAW National contract does require that every three months the plant and the UAW local chairman agree to retain all the temporary employees they have in the building.
Open permanent jobs at Fort Wayne
LeTourneau said of the 250 part-time temps, 95 have been working in that status for 18 months, the rest were hired this year to fill in for vacations.
He started pushing back at GM last December to make the part-time temps full-time. He said that GM told him if he did not sign the letter agreeing to extend the employees’ part-time status, “they would fire them on Dec. 22.”
LeTourneau didn’t want the people to lose their jobs at Christmas or to lose the $10,000 each had earned in profit sharing.
“I wasn’t going to give that money back to the company, so I signed it,” LeTourneau said. “But I am no longer in the Christmas mood. (GM) can’t run without them. If you can’t hire all of them, hire the 95. They need them and we have open full-time jobs in that plant.”
LeTourneau said he sees “the manpower report” for the plant daily, and there are 45 open, permanant jobs at the plant right now.
Kuhnen declined to comment on that statement or anything beyond the GM statement emailed to the Free Press.
“They’ve been leaving jobs here for years and we haven’t replaced one of them because GM keeps sticking temps on it,” LeTourneau said.
He said that in November, GM will offer another round of its early retirement buyout program that LeTourneau estimates about 100 of his members will take advantage of and leave, opening up even more jobs. That’s why it makes sense to make the part-time temps full-time temps to fill those jobs.
“If the company were smart they’d get ahead of the problem and not wait until we’re down on manpower,” LeTourneau said.
LeTourneau said he is open to negotiating with the company right up to Monday, but he refuses to sign the letter to keep those 250 part-time temps, he wants them made either full-time temps with a commitment they will be kept for nine months or made permanent employees.
Big Corvette launch needs manpower
At Bowling Green Assembly, Watson said the national agreement allows GM to staff the facility how it deems is appropriate.
“However, they are basically wanting to strong-arm the members and the local unions and wanting to hold these part-timers in part-time status,” Watson said.
He said the 25 part-time temporary employees at Bowling Green already got letters from the company saying that “at the end of their shift tomorrow (Friday) they are being released by the company.”
Watson said he has been negotiating with GM on this issue since the end of August. He said GM maintains it does not need the part-timers and releasing them cuts cost. Watson said the company does need them and has full-time openings at the Corvette factory.
“GM told the plant manager he can have up to 80 full-time temps going forward for the next quarter when we started talking about it,” Watson said. “But he is not willing and wants to keep them part-time.”
Again, GM declined to comment beyond its statement.
“We currently are still understaffed with the amount of seniority people we contend we’re supposed to have in the building,” Watson said. “The Corvette ZR1, an important launch for GM, is due to launch later this year and, when you first launch a product it takes plenty of manpower.”
(This story was updated to correct a typo.)
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: GM readies to let go of hundreds of temps over 2 local UAW disputes
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