What UAW workers really want

Whether they have decades of experience on the assembly line or were hired only months ago, many workers who walked off the job at General Motors plants last week said they were striking for the same reasons: getting equal pay for all employees, keeping health care costs low and creating a path for temporary employees to gain full-time status.

Tim Duplanty, a member of UAW Local 598 in Flint, Mich., said workers were fighting for fair wages and benefits.
"What we're asking for isn't going to send them over the cliff," Duplanty said. "If this company does get in trouble again, who do they come to first? The easiest spot for them to cut is labor costs. But now it's our turn."

Bill Duford, an assembly worker at a powertrain plant in Romulus, Mich., who has been with GM for 37 years, said the company needed to offer a solution that meets the union's demands.

"They need to come up with something for the temp workers, something for the new hires to move up [to full pay] quicker than eight years," said Duford, a member of Local 163. "Profit-sharing, if they can make that better, then that's great. Health care, we'd just like to keep our health care the way it is."

Meme Edwards, a team leader at Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly and strike captain at the plant's picket line Friday, Sept. 20, encouraged her team to remember why they were on strike.

"We're fighting for not just our future, their future — and the people after that, their future," said Edwards, a member of Local 22.

Temps don't know if or when they'll be hired in, and "they work directly across or with people who are permanent," she said. The plant, which builds the Chevrolet Impala and Cadillac CT6, is down to just 729 hourly workers. It is one of four U.S. plants that GM designated to end production, although a source said last week that GM had proposed keeping the plant open to build an electric pickup. Currently, the plant is scheduled to stay open through January.

The other three plants, including Lordstown Assembly in northeast Ohio, already have shut down.

David Bupte, a longtime electrician who works at Detroit-Hamtramck, said he wanted a contract that recovers hourly wages lost to inflation and other cost-of-living changes.

"They didn't address all the concessions we've had in recent years, the things we've given up for this corporation for it to become profitable again," Bupte said of the two contracts the UAW has agreed to since GM emerged from bankruptcy in 2009. "These employees have kids that want to go to school; they've got mortgages and car payments. All we're asking for is a guarantee that we have a job and an income."

John Hoover, another electrician at Detroit-Hamtramck, said he was fighting for future generations, who he believes won't be able to secure permanent jobs with GM as unionized workers.

"We have people that have been temps for eight years," he said. "How long is it not temporary anymore — at what point? We gave up a lot for [GM]. We went 12 years without a raise. We gave back a dollar raise that we got to get them through the bankruptcy.

"Now it's to heck with us, and it's all about their board of directors and CEO making money and not bringing any work to these factories, closing D-Ham and Lordstown."

Justin Rivera, a line worker at Romulus Powertrain, has been a temp for three months. The plant, which builds V-6 engines and 10-speed transmissions for a variety of GM vehicles, has nearly 1,300 temps. Rivera wants the job security of being a full-time employee. As a temp, he said, "we miss a day, we get fired."

Workers at GM's assembly plant in Delta Township, Mich., near Lansing, also said they wanted to provide a path to permanent jobs for temps and wanted to end the two-tier wage scale adopted in 2007.

"We want to make sure everyone coming through that door has the same benefits and pay as their brothers and sisters that they're working with," said Bill Reed, president of Local 602, which represents 2,300 hourly employees. The plant builds the Buick Enclave and Chevrolet Traverse crossovers.

"Not only did the UAW vote on those [two-tier] contracts to take concessions to help the company, the American taxpayer also did the same thing," Reed said. "Now we've got General Motors, which is the most profitable out of the Big 3, and they do it with the least amount of [UAW] people. And they're not willing to give some of those concessions that we've made back to those who have helped them become as profitable as they are today."

Health care was also top of mind for workers on the picket lines last week.

"People don't understand the wear and tear our bodies go through, so that's very important," said Edwards, the Detroit-Hamtramck team leader.

Under the expired contract, workers paid 3 to 4 percent of their health care costs. GM initially proposed having workers pay 15 percent but retracted it after the UAW balked, sources told Automotive News.

"They want us to start paying for something that we've been getting [essentially] free," added Domanique Henry, an assembly line worker at the Detroit-Hamtramck plant.

Reed and other Local 602 leaders said they trusted UAW Vice President Terry Dittes and his bargaining team to work out details on wages, benefits and job protection targets and ultimately agree on a fair contract.

Until then, workers were standing by. "We're in this until it's settled," said Duford in Romulus. "We're all united."

Michael Martinez, Lindsay VanHulle and Sarah Kominek contributed to this report.