More than 1,000 first-shift employees began leaving the Kansas City, Kan., plant and posting picket lines Monday morning shortly after a final-notice strike deadline expired. About 2,700 GM hourly employees are represented by United Auto Workers Local 31.
The local and GM are wrangling over how job security and outsourcing issues agreed upon generally at the national level are going to play out at the local level.
A prolonged strike could threaten GM’s momentum with its redesigned Chevrolet Malibu, which has sold well amid a slumping automotive industry facing high fuel prices and a slowing economy. The Malibu, which has garnered industrywide praise and awards, is GM’s attempt to regain market share in the passenger-car market from Japanese competitors.
GM has been without a new local contract at the Fairfax plant since last September, when the national agreement was reached after a two-day nationwide strike. Negotiations reached a heightened level of urgency April 18 after Local 31 gave its first strike-notice deadline. The two sides continued to meet daily in hopes of reaching a new agreement, but union officials said progress stalled over the weekend.
“Last Friday we thought we had heard enough to keep talking through the weekend,” said John Melton, Local 31 bargaining chairman. “But it all just fell apart on Saturday.”
Nevertheless, meetings continued through Sunday, and Melton said he was meeting with the plant’s personnel director till shortly before the 9 a.m. deadline Monday.
GM spokesman Ben Ippolito said, “We’re disappointed UAW Local 31 has taken a strike action at the Fairfax plant. We remain focused on reaching an agreement as soon as possible.”
Talks broke off Monday morning, but Ippolito said the company was working toward establishing a new meeting schedule. “We want to continue having an open dialogue with Local 31,” he said.
Jeff Manning, president of UAW Local 31, was unsure when meetings would resume.
“It got a tad-bit angry in there over the weekend,” he said.
Union officials reiterated that key issues remain unresolved, including the union’s concern about keeping jobs that the company is seeking to eventually outsource, such as in the maintenance department. Other obstacles, according to the union, include management’s wish to fill job openings based on the shift an employee works rather than by seniority, the traditional union standard.
Many of the concessions GM is seeking at Fairfax were initially brought up in the spring of 2007, according to union officials, when the company was trying to cut costs sharply from operations in what was termed a “competitive operating agreement.” That ended up on the backburner after GM’s national negotiations began in the summer.
“We didn’t like it then, and we still don’t like it today,” Manning said Monday.
GM has sought to replace higher-paid UAW members with lower-paid workers in the national agreement reached last fall. In the maintenance department, GM is trying to outsource custodial jobs as well as skilled construction jobs at plants companywide.
Some of the outsourcing of jobs provisions was addressed in GM’s national contract, but details are being left to the local talks, said Sean McAlinden, director of economics at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Fairfax workers walk off the job
Join the discussion
Share your observations and experiences about news. Lively, open debate is the goal, but please refrain from personal attacks or comments that are racist, vulgar or otherwise inappropriate. If you see an inappropriate comment, please click the "Report as violation" link to notify a KansasCity.com editor. Thanks for your feedback.