UAW OKs Pact for GM Saturn Plant in South
The executive board of the United Auto Workers Friday approved a contract to cover workers at General Motors Corps.’ revolutionary Saturn Corp. complex, which published reports say will be built in Tennessee.
The agreement paves the way for production at the complex of a new line of small cars and the creation of 6,000 jobs for UAW members and up to 20,000 more jobs for workers in related production, the UAW said.
The union said the contract features permanent job security and full worker participation in union-management decision making.
“This agreement achieves our goals,” said UAW President Owen Bieber.
“It does not set a precedent for any other U.S. facility,” a union source close to the negotiations told Associated Press Friday. “It’s a special project aimed at building high-quality, high domestic-content small cars in this country . . . to provide jobs for American workers.”
The source said the agreement makes current UAW members who work for GM the primary source for recruitment of Saturn workers. Every UAW-GM employee who chooses to work for Saturn will have “permanent job security” and the union will have veto power over any GM move to lay off the employees, the source said.
The announcement by the executive board did not mention where the plant will be built. However, both the Detroit Free Press and the Tennessean of Nashville said the site picked was Spring Hill, a town of 1,100 residents about 30 miles south of Nashville.
The Free Press, in a copyright story, said the site decision is final and will announced in the next several days.
The Tennessean, quoting unidentified industry officials, said that the choice hinged on the UAW’s approval of the labor agreement.
GM spokesman Stan Hall said he could neither confirm nor deny the reports. The giant auto maker had said it would wait until a labor contract was approved by UAW leaders before announcing a site.
Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander said he is aware that a Nashville lawyer has taken an option on 2,400 acres of land near Spring Hill for an unidentified industrial client.
“There has never been a time when General Motors has even considered putting anything like that in Tennessee,” he said Thursday. “Just to be considered for something about that is a tremendous boost for the state.”
More than three dozen states have bid furiously for the Saturn project and its 6,000 jobs. Kalamazoo, Mich., and a site in Kentucky also had been mentioned as finalists.
GM has said it must build the plant near a community that can absorb the 25,000 increase in population that the Saturn jobs--and the jobs of supplier companies--will bring.
The Saturn complex will have two foundries, a plastics plant and other parts plants on site to feed a mammoth assembly operation capable of eventually producing half-million cars a year--or double that of today’s most efficient plants.
The Free Press said GM officials noted that the selection of Tennessee would underscore the auto maker’s commitment to competing aggressively with the Japanese auto companies, who enjoy a $2,000-per-car cost advantage over domestic car makers.
By locating its state-of-the-industry complex in Spring Hill, about 30 miles from a Nissan Motor Co. plant in Smyrna, Tenn., GM would make a strong statement about Saturn as an import fighter, the newspaper’s sources said.
The UAW also would gain a base from which to try to convince Nissan workers to join the union, they said.
GM will design, build and market a line of cars under the Saturn nameplate beginning in 1989 or 1990. The first will be a four-door sedan. GM said it will commit $5 billion to the project.
