]> http://www.laborradio.org/taxonomy/term/145/0 en http://www.laborradio.org/node/8990 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>GM,America’s fourth largest company in annual sales, said Tuesday that it’s making more deep cuts to survive a harsh economy. GM jobs have gone from 107,000 hourly jobs in 2004 to 74,000 today. Buyouts and early retirement incentives will slash even more of those as some new workers are added at half the pay. The new cuts include selling off $4-7 billion in assets, slashing salaried jobs and benefits and suspending the GM stock dividend. GM CEO Rick Waggoner called this an “unprecedentedly difficult time”. He said these cuts are necessary for GM’s survival.</p> GM Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:23:56 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/6896 <p>Canadian Auto Workers have pledged their support for U.S. autoworkers even as their plants close due to lack of auto parts flowing north. Jesse Russell reports:</p> <p>[Hargrove1]: By the end of this week we could have anywhere between eighty and 100,000 people unemployed.</p> <p>That was Canadian Auto Worker President Buzz Hargrove addressing reporters on Monday after news hit his country of the United Auto Workers walk out at GM plants throughout the United States. According to Hargrove, GM plants in Canada receive roughly 50 percent of their parts from the United States. Without new shipments coming in plants will begin turning off the lights and sending workers home as stock runs out. Hargrove said the UAW has given more than enough, but GM doesn’t seem to want to offer the same commitment. He said what is happening in the US could be a sign of how GM plans to approach Canadian autoworkers in 2008:</p> GM UAW Tue, 25 Sep 2007 21:24:02 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/6882 <p>As the country debates which presidential candidate has a better health care plan, General Motors and the United Autoworkers are closing in on their own. The leaked plan would include a Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association that would pay medical benefits for retirees, but remove long-term health care liabilities from GM’s books. GM would give the UAW an estimated 60 to 70 percent of the liability costs so the union can assume responsibility for retiree health care. If Ford and Chrysler follow suit, the UAW could walk away with more than $60 billion in assets. It would be one of the lar</p> GM UAW Sun, 23 Sep 2007 15:21:52 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/6836 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>As the UAW negotiates an historic U.S. auto industry labor agreement, the company is reportedly pressing hard to get rid of its retiree health care liability with a trust fund called a VEBA. GM also reportedly has floated proposals to freeze cost-of-living wage increases, create a a two-tier wage system that would pay new hires less and also wants to be free to eliminate as many as 30,000 more jobs. That’s according to former UAW International Executive Board member Jerry Tucker.</p> <p>[Tucker 1]: “Why should workers have to bear the brunt of their shifting their capital to China, to India, to the Eastern bloc, the old Eastern bloc in Europe, just to manufacture more money and, in this country, less cars?" </p> GM UAW Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:48:46 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/5038 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>As autoworkers, already hit hard by plant closings, prepare for new contract negotiations with the U.S. automakers it’s clear that GM and Ford will be looking for more concessions and givebacks. Neither the auto executives nor the UAW leadership is talking publicly about exactly what the concessions are likely to be. One likely target of the auto companies are retiree health benefits, even though the UAW already agreed in 2006 to cut retiree health benefits.</p> Ford GM UAW Wed, 10 Jan 2007 16:28:04 -0800 http://www.laborradio.org/node/3908 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>Did Delphi plan its bankruptcy by under-funding its pension system while draining huge amounts of money from U.S. to overseas operations as a way to dump both its pensions and its American union workers? Soldiers of Solidarity activist Gregg Shotwell thinks that it may have, and he says Delphi cannot be allowed to get away with it.</p> <p>[Gregg Shotwell]: “They were undermining the competitiveness and the value of the U.S. operations. So this really looks like a plan. If they are allowed to succeed in bankrupting the United States and dumping the responsibility for retirement in the taxpayers other multinationals are going to look at this as a business plan.”</p> GM UAW Tue, 08 Aug 2006 17:22:11 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/3488 <p>By Jesse Russell</p> <p>Just in time for the United Auto Workers convention in Las Vegas this week, the union reached an agreement with General Motors and Delphi that offers buyouts to all 24,000 of the auto parts supplier’s workers. The new agreement potentially averts a strike by the workers. Although GM does not know how much the buyout will cost the company, reaching the agreement will help discussions move onto wage and benefit cuts. After those cuts are made, Delphi can determine how much the buyouts will be. Workers with at least 30 years experience are eligible for the buyout plan.</p> Auto Industry GM UAW Sun, 11 Jun 2006 10:08:46 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/3401 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>More than 20,000 UAW workers have accepted buyouts offered by GM as it slashes jobs. Nearly 30,000 in all are expected to take the offer by a June deadline. After a GM stock rally on Wall Street Deutsche Bank on Tuesday downgraded GM stock again. But GM stock is still up about 40 percent for the year. Meanwhile Delphi, GM and the UAW continue their struggle to reach a solution short of a catastrophic strike in the face of Delphi’s intent to obliterate more than 20,000 U.S. union jobs and drive down wages. A decision is expected in June by New York Bankruptcy judge Robe</p> GM UAW Tue, 30 May 2006 19:42:30 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/3375 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>In the Delphi bankruptcy hearings lawyers for Delphi stockholders and for the unions said Delphi doesn’t need to be filing bankruptcy. Glenn Kurtz, a stockholders attorney, told the court that Delphi is not in a financial crisis. Kurtz says Delphi’s financial performance is better than expected and the company still has $3.6 billion in available liquidity.</p> GM UAW Thu, 25 May 2006 17:27:49 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/3366 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>Bankruptcy hearings for Delphi are under way this week. The giant auto parts maker is trying to throw out its union contracts as it destroys more than 20,000 good U.S. jobs in favor of moving production to cheap overseas labor markets.</p> GM UAW Wed, 24 May 2006 18:04:00 -0700 http://www.laborradio.org/node/2940 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>The United Autoworkers union says Delphi is expected to file in bankruptcy court today to throw out its union contracts but it won’t trigger an immediate worker walkout. Henry Reichard of the IUE-CWA says his union has already authorized a strike if the contracts are thrown out, but he says the court has set hearings in May to decide the issue, giving the unions and Delphi time to avoid a catastrophic strike that would cripple both the giant auto parts maker and General Motors.</p> <p>[Henry Reichard] : "So we're looking at months yet. And we still have time to get an agreement. And I think that it's in everyone's best interests. And I think that all parties realize that."</p> CWA GM UAW Thu, 30 Mar 2006 16:05:21 -0800 http://www.laborradio.org/node/2919 <p>By Jesse Russell</p> <p>Fewer than 500 salaried employees were laid off at 30 General Motor locations yesterday. Dubbed, "Black Tuesday" by the media, the layoffs follow an announcement earlier this year of plans to slash the jobs of more than 36,000 hourly workers in North America by 2008. Last Wednesday GM announced it had negotiated a buyout plan with the unions representing those hourly workers for between $35,000 and $140,000. The salaried employees laid off yesterday are not eligible for the buyout plan, but do receive a severance pay of one-month for every year they were employed by the automaker - up to 15 months.</p> GM Tue, 28 Mar 2006 14:47:38 -0800 http://www.laborradio.org/node/2887 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>Delphi’s assault on auto industry manufacturing wages and benefit standards isn’t stopping with the attrition buyout reached between GM and the UAW. Unless the UAW agrees to sharply lower wages and benefits by March 30th, Delphi still intends to file a bankruptcy court motion to destroy its union contracts. Greg Shotwell, a Delphi worker in Michigan, says the fight is still on to protect the auto industry’s good wage and benefits structure. And what’s needed, he says, is a comprehensive agreement that protects workers collectively.</p> <p>[Shotwell] : “We need a comprehensive solution in the sense that it would cover wages, protect jobs, pensions, benefits, health care, everything.”</p> GM UAW Thu, 23 Mar 2006 18:52:49 -0800 http://www.laborradio.org/node/2863 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>The UAW has reached an agreement with Delphi and GM that offers a variety of early retirement options, buyouts and “flowbacks” of Delphi workers to GM. Delphi workers will be offered $35,000 for normal or early retirements retroactive to October of 2005, a “Mutually Satisfactory Retirement” for workers 50 or older with ten or more years on the job and buyouts of $140,000 for workers with ten or more years who agree in exchange to sever all ties with GM and Delphi. Called the GM and Delphi Special Attrition Program the agreement must be approved by a bankruptcy court since Delphi has filed for bankruptcy, But it avoids an attempt by Delphi to void UAW contracts and thus prevents a strike that would cripple both Delphi and GM. The UAW says it will schedule a meeting soon where details of the program will be discussed. The union did not hold a news conference to announce the agreement. The UAW says it will file its own motion with the bankruptcy court addressing the key issues in Delphi’s bankruptcy and in support of this agreement. Delphi will file a separate motion, but also asking the bankruptcy court to approve the agreement.</p> GM UAW Tue, 21 Mar 2006 16:38:37 -0800 http://www.laborradio.org/node/2861 <p>By Doug Cunningham</p> <p>UAW spokesman Paul Krell tells Workers Independent News that talks between the union, GM and Delphi are “constructive” and progress has been made. Krell would not say whether the UAW is actually close to a final deal that would resolve the Delphi bankruptcy situation for UAW members.</p> <p>There’s speculation that a deal could come as early as today that would offer early retirement buyouts to as many as 70,000 workers. Delphi says if no deal is reached by March 31, it will move in bankruptcy court to void union contracts with the UAW and five other unions. The unions have warned that a strike is likely if their contracts are arbitrarily thrown out.</p> GM UAW Tue, 21 Mar 2006 11:35:31 -0800