GM RETRENCHES : Lack of Details Disturbs Workers : Employment: Though attrition and retirement will be used first, layoffs could follow to reach the company’s goal of cutting 74,000 jobs by 1995.
The large cutbacks announced by General Motors on Wednesday left thousands of its employees from Canada to Texas facing an uncertain Christmas, not knowing if their jobs will be eliminated.
“Yet once again the reward for employees is anxiety and dislocation at best or unemployment at worst,” said Owen Bieber, president of the United Auto Workers union.
GM said it would close six assembly plants--but did not say which ones--as part of a restructuring that will take 21 facilities off-line.
By 1995, 54,000 blue-collar jobs will be gone, GM said. Attrition and retirement will take the first bite, but layoffs could follow.
In addition, 20,000 salaried white-collar jobs will disappear during the next few years, a move GM President Robert C. Stempel said he hoped--but did not guarantee--would be eliminated by retirement and attrition.
“I don’t want to relocate,” said one nervous worker at GM’s Willow Run assembly plant near Ypsilanti, Mich.
The Willow Run assembly plant and one in Arlington, Tex., will be combined, but GM did not say which town would be the loser.
Stempel denied that writing a blank check and filling in the numbers later was an attempt to play union members against each other.
He said the closings would be decided on the basis of the impact they would have on individual states and localities.
The current UAW contract, which has about two years to run, allows laid-off workers to collect nearly complete pay and benefits for the life of the contract.
The UAW said it would “vigorously enforce” the present pact to make sure those guarantees are met.
The white-collar workers were also left with uncertainty. Stempel said the reductions would come across the board.
The UAW called Wednesday’s announcement a reaction to the “insatiable demands of the Ebenezer Scrooge-types who run Wall Street.”
Bieber and Vice President Stephen Yokich added:
“Not only will this announcement ruin the holidays for a lot of people--it can only have the counterproductive effect of further dragging down confidence in the state of the U.S. economy.”
Workers at the GM assembly plant in Arlington, Tex., said they did not know whether to laugh or cry about Stempel’s failure to make clear whether they will lose their jobs.
The Arlington and Willow Run plants make the rear-wheel drive Chevrolet Caprice, Cadillac Brougham and Buick Roadmaster.
Arlington workers made it clear that they have mixed emotions.
“I am real glad that we didn’t get the ax today, but I also feel like I want to get this thing settled,” said Frank Roach as he came out of a meeting of employees and union officials.
Said George Carmichael: “I’ll celebrate with my family today and try not to let it bother our Christmas, but after that we may do some crying.”
The situation is also being watched closely by officials at Arlington’s City Hall, where a spokesman said the plant is worth more than $135 million annually to the local economy and put $3 million in property taxes into city coffers last year.
The plant, which encompasses 2.34 million square feet, was opened in 1953 and produces 2,800 cars each day.
Hundreds of Arlington workers gathered at union headquarters to discuss the cuts.
“What they are really doing is challenging us to see which of these two plants is more willing to step up production and quality,” said metalworker James Carpenter.
“In a nutshell it’s us versus the Willow Run people.”
Union officials worked through the weekend with Arlington workers to put together a package of contract changes designed to step up production without adding to GM’s costs.
The package was being voted on Wednesday as Stempel announced the cuts.
“We’re not willing to give concessions,” said Mike Seiler, shop chairman of United Auto Workers Local 276. “We are not willing to go against the national agreement. We’re willing to sit down and open up discussions and see where we can go from there.”
While Stempel said GM was not trying to play plants against each other, Arlington workers were not convinced.
“If they can get us to work longer hours for less pay and step up production and quality, you can bet they will do whatever it takes,” said assembly worker Carl Wagner.
Seiler said the union has “the responsibility to make sure we put our best foot forward. We have a good work force with a long history of high-quality work.”
Whole families of workers met at the University of Texas at Arlington to offer ideas on what could be done.
“It may not be up to us, but we aren’t going to go gently into that good night,” said Roberta Clarice, whose husband, father and brother have all worked at the plant.
