Bloomberg.com, October 15, 2007, Monday

Bloomberg.com, October 15, 2007, Monday

UAW Negotiator Urged a `No' Vote on Chrysler Deal (Update2)

By John Lippert

Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) -- The chief of the United Auto Workers' panel that negotiated last week's contract with Chrysler LLC urged union leaders to vote against the accord because it fails to ensure future work at the automaker's plants.

The official, Bill Parker, said he shared his views at a meeting today in Detroit, where about 200 union local leaders were briefed on the Oct. 10 agreement. The officials, in a voice vote, recommended the contract to 45,000 rank-and-file workers at Chrysler, the third-largest U.S. automaker.

Parker's opposition contributed to weaker support for the Chrysler contract than a similar council gave to General Motors Corp. The negotiating committee and local leaders voted unanimously in favor of the GM contract last month before it was ratified by 66 percent of workers.

``It clearly wasn't unanimous,'' Parker said in an interview. The vote means UAW President Ron Gettelfinger ``is going to have to work hard at getting a ratification.''

Parker estimates that 25 percent of council members were against the contract. Nikola Gjonaj, a union representative from UAW Local 1248 in Centerline, Michigan, said it looked to him that 15 percent rejected it.

Parker, who is also president of UAW Local 1700 at the company's Sterling Heights assembly plant in Michigan, said he issued a 'minority report' recommending that UAW delegates at today's meeting reject the Chrysler contract. Chrysler spokeswoman Michele Tinson declined to comment.

Opposing Factions

Gettelfinger and his top lieutenants belong to the Administration Caucus, an internal faction that has controlled the union since 1946. Parker was a member of a rival group called New Directions that mounted its strongest challenge in 1989, when it sought unsuccessfully to unseat two members of the union's international executive board.

``Parker is basically challenging Gettelfinger, and I don't see a groundswell of support to do that,'' said Harry Katz, a labor relations professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

``Virtually no Chrysler plant received commitments beyond the scope of their current product,'' Parker said in a leaflet he distributed to the local leaders who make up the Chrysler national bargaining council. ``As a result, the plant-by-plant threats we've experienced in the past will continue.''

Rival

The union's contract with GM provided stronger job guarantees, said Parker, who is also president of UAW Local 1700 at a Chrysler assembly plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan.

GM assured work for at least 55 of 82 UAW plants, in some cases with new vehicles starting in 2013 and extending well into the next decade. Unlike Chrysler, of Auburn Hills, Michigan, GM promised that specific new vehicles, including a hybrid that can be recharged through an electrical outlet, will be built in the U.S., Parker said. GM is the largest U.S. automaker.

In his leaflet, Parker criticized several elements of the GM contract, including the lack of a base wage increase and the creation of a ``non-core'' status for new workers such as forklift drivers who will be paid about half as much as current UAW members.

The Chrysler contract is worse for the union, Parker said, because four facilities will be entirely ``non-core'' once current workers retire. These include a yet-to-be-built axle plant in Marysville, Michigan; a machining complex in Toledo, Ohio; and the Mopar parts operation and Chrysler Transport, he said. During the talks, Chrysler had proposed closing or selling Mopar and Chrysler Transport.

Chrysler is eight months into a plan to cut 13,000 jobs as it seeks to close a $25 to $30 per hour labor cost gap with rivals Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. in the U.S.

Contract Criticism

Parker criticized the Chrysler settlement for failing to ensure, as did the GM agreement, that temporary workers would be hired into full-time jobs, and for allowing skilled-trade workers such as electricians to do non-skilled or production work.

He also objected to a requirement that Chrysler retirees help pay for medical coverage for the first time. This change mirrors a 2005 concession in which the UAW agreed that GM and Ford Motor Co. retirees would contribute as much as $752 a year per family for health care; they had no out of pocket expenses previously.

In 2005, Parker had opposed adopting the GM and Ford health- care givebacks at Chrysler.

In his leaflet, Parker praised one element of the new contract -- a moratorium on sending work to outside suppliers. He made no mention of Chrysler's plan to spend $11 billion to finance a union-run fund for retiree health care.

To contact the reporter on this story: John Lippert in Southfield, Michigan, at jlippert@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 15, 2007 14:28 EDT