Progress Slow in GM Strike Talks
Union officials reported slow progress Sunday in talks aimed at ending a strike by 2,700 workers at a General Motors Corp. truck plant in Indiana now in its third day.
Negotiators from GM and United Auto Workers Local 2209 resumed talks on terms for a new three-year contract Sunday morning after working for about nine hours Saturday, GM executives and union officials said.
“Things are moving relatively slowly, but progress continues to be made,” said Mark Weber of Local 2209.
The strike began Friday morning after no agreement was reached by the local’s deadline. The union is demanding that GM address health and safety concerns and add jobs to cut down on overtime.
GM is resisting the demand because it wants to follow through on plans to cut about 30,000 of its 210,000 hourly workers in the U.S. under the current three-year national contract with the UAW.
The national contract, which guides pacts GM needs to set with UAW locals, allows GM to not replace jobs it reduces through production efficiency gains.
The Fort Wayne plant, one of four GM plants in North America that makes full-size pickup trucks, produces about 1,000 regular-size-cab Chevrolet C/K and GMC Sierra trucks each day. The more popular models with larger cabs are produced elsewhere.
Several analysts have said GM is likely to stand firm against UAW job demands at the plant. But others said the company does not need more labor headaches as it rolls out crucial new car and minivan models this year.
Strikes cost the world’s largest auto maker $1.2 billion in lost profit in 1996.
The Fort Wayne plant is the first UAW facility to strike GM since the new national labor agreement was reached in November. But other locals, including one at GM’s Oklahoma City car plant, where the new Chevrolet Malibu is made, have asked for permission to set a strike deadline.
GM, which has the worst labor relations of Detroit’s Big Three auto makers, has yet to reach local agreements with about 40 of its 105 locals.
Ford Motor Co. has agreements with nearly all of its 72 locals, and Chrysler Corp. needs agreements with about 20 more of its 150 locals.
Although the strike could cost GM lost profit, customers are unlikely to experience shortages of GM trucks soon. Dealers had about 80-day supplies of the C/K and GMC pickups at the end of February, according to Autodata Corp., a market research firm.
Although that is lower than what some analysts predicted, it is still more than the 60-day supply the industry considers to be an optimum number.
UAW members at the Fort Wayne plant typically work up to 1 1/2 hours of overtime per shift.
