UAW, Chrysler to Begin Early Contract Talks

Chrysler Corp. and the United Auto Workers union today open early national contract negotiations aimed at healing their recently bruised relationship and adopting innovations to make Chrysler more competitive.

Negotiators led by Chrysler Vice President Anthony St. John and UAW Vice President Marc Stepp are attempting to reach a pact to cover 59,500 active and 8,000 laid-off Chrysler workers whose labor contract expires Sept. 14

The UAW is seeking a two-year duration for the new contract so it will expire with the GM and Ford pacts in 1990.

The two sides will work within a pattern contract established last fall with Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. The ground-breaking agreements forbid plant closings not announced before labor contract talks begin and prevents layoffs except during production slowdowns caused by poor sales.

They also feature six-month joint management-labor studies at each plant to find ways to improve productivity and efficiency, including adoption of so-called team concept worker organization.

Harley Shaiken, a labor and technology expert at the University of California at San Diego, said Chrysler is counting on such studies to pave the way for companywide adoption of the so-called modern operating agreements already in effect at six plants.

At plants with MOAs, management and labor share all decisions and design the jobs so they can be performed by a team of workers. Each team member learns all tasks involved in the team’s assignment.

Workers can increase their wages by learning additional jobs, while the cross-training cuts down absenteeism costs because fewer standby workers are needed. Teams also inspect their own work, reducing the need for inspectors and for workers who repair the mistakes of others.

Some workers and local union leaders steadfastly have resisted adopting MOAs. Most of the six local unions that adopted them were threatened with a plant closing and, in some cases, promised a new plant and more work.

Some have resisted successfully. In Belvidere, Ill., local union leaders refused to accept an MOA despite Chrysler’s threat to close the plant, agreeing only to give more flexibility in use of workers. Chrysler in turn put its new Dodge Dynasty and Chrysler Fifth Avenue front-wheel-drive luxury cars in the plant.

“What Chrysler wants to create is an atmosphere where the MOAs will be more readily accepted and you can do that at the national table,” Shaiken said in an interview Sunday.

But, he said, “it’s going to be difficult in the wake of the attempted Acustar sale and the Kenosha closing. Chrysler’s key challenge will be trying to get the national contract out of the way so it can concentrate on the local agreements.”

Chrysler’s attempt to sell its Acustar Inc. parts subsidiary sparked a bitter, companywide union backlash that forced it to back down in early March and led to the decision to begin early contract talks.