UAW, Chrysler Closer to National Settlement

The United Auto Workers and Chrysler Corp. moved closer to a national contract settlement Monday after wrapping up all but final details of related agreements covering former American Motors Corp. workers in Wisconsin, a union official said.

“It means now we can turn our full attention to the national talks. They’re going very well,” UAW Vice President Marc Stepp said, adding that since last week, Chrysler management’s “attitude has changed for the positive.”

UAW President Owen Bieber, who on Monday joined national contract talks covering 66,000 Chrysler workers in 15 states, said Chrysler and the UAW reached tentative settlements on a master pact covering all former AMC workers in Wisconsin and a local contract covering 6,500 workers in Kenosha, Wis.

“We had to get this piece settled before we could settle the rest. There was no way that we were going to put together the national agreement and let these people hang out there by themselves,” Bieber said.

“Now we can get down to the bigger things,” he said, adding the only deadline set for finishing national contract talks is “as soon as we possibly can.”

The four-year Kenosha pact covers 5,500 workers who will be laid off in the closing of an assembly plant at year’s end and 1,000 workers at an engine plant that will remain open.

Supplemental Benefits

The master Wisconsin pact, which covers all UAW workers who were employed by AMC in the state when Chrysler bought the ailing auto maker in August, will give Kenosha workers about 80%, or $48 million, of the $60 million AMC borrowed from them earlier in the decade, said Chrysler spokesman Lloyd Northard.

The Kenosha payments will come to an average of more than $5,000 per worker.

Under the same pact, about 200 Milwaukee workers at a parts depot and 425 laid off from a stamping plant there will receive the same percentage of more than $5 million AMC owed them under the master pact.

Bieber said the master pact also would guarantee laid-off workers six months of supplemental unemployment benefits, which are paid in addition to regular unemployment compensation to provide 95% of regular pay. In addition, it makes it easier for workers to retire early and match pension benefits to those at General Motors and Ford, he said.

Sources close to the negotiations said it was unlikely a national contract would be reached before Friday. However, the two sides have adapted to Chrysler some terms of the industry-pattern contract established last fall at GM and Ford, including the crucial job-security element, called Base Employment Levels at Chrysler.

Talks on Chrysler’s national contract, which expires Sept. 14, opened April 18. Last week, the Wisconsin talks were moved to Detroit so bargainers for both sides could negotiate all contracts simultaneously.

The tentative Kenosha local pact appears similar to a five-year agreement reached in October covering Jeep plant workers in Toledo, Ohio. Both pacts give the company more flexibility in using workers.

Ed Steagall, president of UAW Local 72 at Kenosha, said about 20% of the Kenosha workers will be able to retire early and laid-off Kenosha workers will have first crack at any new jobs at the engine plant there.

Nick Romano, president of Local 75 in Milwaukee, said he also was pleased with the settlements, which will be voted on by next week.

“I feel good about what’s happening. I don’t feel good about our plant being terminated in Milwaukee,” he said.

But he added that the the pacts help soften the blow for workers losing their jobs.

The UAW and Chrysler agreed to early contract talks after major wounds to their working relationship. Among them were Chrysler’s January announcement of the Kenosha assembly plant closing--a sudden reversal of promises that the plant would run five more years--and Chrysler’s failed attempt to sell its Acustar Inc. parts subsidiary.

Chrysler backed down from the sale and agreed to early talks in March, but the talks almost died after last week’s announcement of Chairman’s Lee A. Iacocca’s $17.9-million 1987 earnings and other executive compensation.