GM, UAW Officials Propose Japanese-Style Operation to Keep Van Nuys Plant Open

Negotiators for General Motors and the United Auto Workers have reached a tentative agreement to change the way that cars are made at the company’s Van Nuys assembly plant, a move that could prolong the life of the plant, officials of GM and the union disclosed Friday.

If approved by members of UAW Local 645 in Van Nuys, the plant would shift from a traditional assembly operation with rigidly defined work classifications to a Japanese-style “team concept” of production that would give workers considerably more responsibility and expand the scope of their jobs. Union officials said they have scheduled meetings for ratification votes on the new contract for next Wednesday and Thursday.

“I think we’ve got a good agreement,” said Ray Ruiz, chairman of Local 645’s bargaining committee. “I think that this is going to be the key to the success of our future.”

But Pete Beltran, Local 645’s president, said he will oppose the new agreement because he feels that the “team concept” would lead to a loss of jobs and would not give workers sufficient assurance that the plant’s life will be indefinitely prolonged.

K. C. Beck, personnel manager of the Van Nuys plant, confirmed that an agreement had been reached, but he declined to elaborate on the details until after the union votes.

The outline of the agreement was presented to workers in a letter distributed at the plant by Ruiz on Friday afternoon.

Hourly employees would work in teams of five to seven people that would be responsible for an entire segment of the production process, rather than simply doing one job continually--such as putting welds in a door--as they do now.

“It’s a different production system,” Ruiz said. “The teams will have responsibility for inspection and repair of what they do,” rather than having inspection and repair be segregated tasks that occur at the end of the assembly process, he added.

The new system is patterned in part after the one used at the GM-Toyota joint-venture plant in Fremont, Calif., Ruiz said.

The Van Nuys plant’s long-term future has been in doubt since late 1982, when GM placed it on an endangered list. The company has been demanding that the union accept modified work rules that would make the plant more efficient.

Since early 1983, a group of workers at the plant, with the assistance of religious leaders, politicians and elements of the Van Nuys business community, has been conducting a militant campaign to secure a commitment from GM to keep the plant open on a long-term basis. They contend that GM has a moral obligation to stay in Van Nuys, where they say it has operated profitably since 1948. The Campaign to Keep GM Van Nuys Open has threatened to launch a boycott of GM products in Southern California if the plant closes.

Southern California is the nation’s largest new car market but one in which Japanese cars have been gaining an increasingly strong position.

Seek New Car for Plant

Beltran has been an advocate of the boycott threat. Ruiz has opposed it, saying he fears that it would precipitate GM’s departure from Van Nuys, lest it appeared to be bowing to pressure.

The letter that Ruiz distributed to workers Friday did not state that the agreement contains any guarantee regarding the plant’s future. Ruiz and Bruce Lee, the UAW’s Western regional director, have been pushing GM to agree to give the plant another car to make after it phases out production of the Chevrolet Camaro and the Pontiac Firebird there after the 1988 model year. A company official said Friday that if workers at Van Nuys accept the new agreement, the plant would have a better chance to get another car to make.

A key part of the agreement, according to union officials, is a provision that will enable more than 400 workers at Van Nuys with 28 years or more of seniority to take early retirement. Under the current contract, a UAW member can retire with a full pension after 30 years.

This part of the agreement was considered critical by the union because it would encourage older workers to retire earlier, thus lessening the effect of prospective job losses under the new production system. Some workers interviewed at the plant Friday said they thought younger workers would be more likely to vote for the new agreement than older workers, for two reasons.

First, they said the jobs of the younger, lower-seniority workers are more in danger. GM has announced that it will indefinitely lay off the entire second shift, made up mostly of less-senior workers, in July. Secondly, some older workers would have to work in more strenuous jobs than they currently do once the new system is adopted. The workers predicted a close vote.

Under the pact, changes in plant operations would include the following:

- Time clocks will be phased out and eventually eliminated, according to the letter that Ruiz distributed. Ruiz said in a telephone interview that this was a fundamental step toward changing the relationship between hourly employees and management at Van Nuys.

“If they believe in mutual trust, we need to do this,” Ruiz said. “Management people don’t have to punch in, and our people shouldn’t have to,” he said.

Ruiz said, however, that it would take some time to eliminate time clocks because doing it immediately would disrupt production.

- The assembly line would be stopped once a week for half an hour so that team meetings could be held. At the Fremont plant, workers have the right to push a button whenever they see a problem in the production process. Workers at the Van Nuys plant would eventually have this right, too, Ruiz said.

- Hourly employees and managers would eat in the same cafeteria and leave their cars in the same parking lot. Currently, there are three parking areas at the factory, two for different levels of management employees and one for hourly employees who are in the union. “We’ve broken down some of the barriers,” Ruiz said.

Common cafeterias and parking area are typical at Japanese auto plants. They are designed to foster a closer relationship between workers and management by reducing obvious status differences that do not yield any benefits to a company’s effectiveness.

- Typical assembly-line workers, now averaging $12.82 per hour, would have their pay boosted to $13.28 an hour. The top hourly workers, who would be designated as “team leaders,” would have their pay hiked to $13.78 from $13.33. Currently one of every 30 to 35 hourly workers in the plant make in the range of $13.23 to $13.33, Ruiz said. After the new system is installed, one of every six or seven people would make the top rate of $13.78.

Times staff writer Doug Smith contributed to this story.