Buffalo News (New York), April 5, 2008, Saturday

Copyright 2008 Buffalo News

Buffalo News (New York)

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News

April 5, 2008, Saturday

SECTION: BUSINESS AND FINANCIAL NEWS

HEADLINE: American Axle, UAW resume talks: Union denounces idea of replacement workers

BYLINE: Matt Glynn, The Buffalo News, N.Y.

BODY:

Apr. 5--Serious negotiations are expected to resume this weekend as the strike at American Axle & Manufacturing reaches 40 days, but if talks do not progress, the company has raised the possibility of using replacement workers. The company has run help-wanted ads in newspapers.

Using replacement workers is controversial in a union town, yet it's a maneuver other local companies have used.

The auto parts supplier said the primary reason it advertised was to develop a pool of candidates to draw from after it reaches a labor agreement with the United Auto Workers. American Axle said it expects a large number of workers to leave once a new contract is secured, via buyouts or retirements, creating vacancies to fill.

But the company said it could also hire people to serve as temporary replacement workers during a strike that began Feb. 26.

Locally, workers denounced such an idea at a rally Friday at the Cheektowaga plant on Walden Avenue.

However, amid the tension, union and company officials are optimistic about resuming talks since an a charge of unfair labor practices filed against the company has been resolved, and a second one could be soon, the Detroit News reported.

One charge, the firm's premature canceling of health care benefits for some workers, was resolved Thursday. The second, the withholding of needed financial data is under review, said UAW Local 235 President Adrian King, who represents workers at the Detroit plant.

The company has reinstated health care and disability benefits to injured workers, King said. Those workers should have retained those benefits despite the union's strike, he said. The same applies to family members who were receiving long-term medical care, such as a surgery or child-birth, before the strike began.

Also the company will reimburse laid-off workers for health insurance that was prematurely terminated, King said.

But if the strike drags on, there are local examples of companies using replacement workers.

Striking UAW members interviewed this week said they doubted American Axle would hire replacements.

"It's a scare tactic," Dwayne Manning said as he picketed outside the Town of Tonawanda forge last week.

Manning and other picketers said they believed the company instead wants to prepare to hire new workers after a contract is approved.

He and other picketers also said they felt the nature of their work made replacement workers an unlikely option.

"It takes a long time to learn these jobs," Manning said.

Learning to run the plant's equipment and machinery would be difficult and dangerous for an inexperienced new hire, said Lenny Price, who was also on the picket line. "Someone could get hurt."

Still, the workers recalled examples of other area manufacturers using temporary replacements -- and inflaming tensions with union members who denounce those workers as "scabs" -- at places like Good-year- Dunlop Tire in the Town of Tonawanda and Eastman Machine in Buffalo.

During the United Steelworkers' strike at Goodyear- Dunlop in late 2006, the union estimated the company used several hundred temporary replacements who earned about two-thirds of the average union hourly wage. Replacements rode in and out on buses.

Away from the picket line, union members launched a campaign questioning the quality and safety of tires made by salaried workers and the temporary replacements.

Eastman Machine also bused in replacements during a 2005 strike by UAW members, prompting the union to set up an oversized rat balloon outside the plant. After 19 weeks, the union called off the strike.

About 580 area American Axle workers are on strike, said Jim Lakeman, president of UAW Local 846, which represents workers at the Tonawanda and Cheektowaga plants. The figure includes workers whose status recently changed from laid-off to striking when they refused to cross the picket line to return to work.

Art Wheaton, director of Buffalo labor studies at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, said if American Axle were to hire replacement workers during the strike, it could have an unintended effect.

"I think it's the single biggest way to get the labor community to rally around the UAW," he said.

Patrick Heraty, a professor of business administration at Hilbert College, who follows the auto industry, said using replacements could add to the UAW's frustrations over the company's push for deep wage cuts.

"The UAW is so angry right now and so upset that it would seem the use of replacement workers would really intensify the hostility," he said. "It would create really bad feelings, or worsen the feelings."

American Axle has received "hundreds" of applications for the positions it advertised in Michigan and Western New York, said Renee Rogers, a company spokeswoman. Over the past week, the company sometimes stopped taking applications online as it sorted through the applications.

Rogers said creating a pool of future, post-strike workers was the primary intent. She said she didn't know under what circumstances the company might use temporary replacements.

"That's not our primary goal in all of this," she said.

mglynn@buffnews.com

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