Word: flints
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...FLINT: Now that the GM strike appears to be finally settled, who won? TIME reporter Joe Szczesny, who's been following the 54-day-long strike in Flint, says that the preliminary decision goes to the union. While details are still trickling out, UAW vice president Richard Shoemaker promised that the rank and file of the two local unions would get first look at the particulars...
...union got some jobs and a promise not to sell plants," says Szczesny. "GM will invest $180 million in the Flint Metal Center in exchange for an improvement in productivity there." In return, the union will settle the festering disputes at three other locations not on strike -- and Szczesny thinks GM may have won more than the union announced Tuesday. "There should be more back end for GM coming out soon" as details of the deal emerge over the next few days, he says. No matter how it did, the world's largest carmaker can't get back to making...
Settling the strike--an arbitration hearing is scheduled for Wednesday over GM's claim that the walkouts in Flint are illegal--is to some extent the least of the company's problems. GM faces enormous challenges with its products, its market strategy, its international business and even its leadership. Many of GM's critics believe that the world's largest automaker needs another total makeover. That means dumping factories, jobs--even executives--not to mention junking some of the nameplates no longer needed in GM's shrinking empire...
...Flint, GM is trying to boost profit margins by outsourcing, a source of contention. But the company needs to make great leaps, not incremental steps. Analyst Stephen J. Girsky of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter estimates that to get into fighting shape, GM would have to close three assembly plants, eliminating as many as 34,500 blue-collar jobs. Try negotiating that. And the company needs to close about 2,300 dealerships...
...years ago in Flint, GM and the U.A.W. negotiated a deal they pretended was efficient: in exchange for labor peace, GM pays workers for a full day but allows them to leave early if they have finished their daily quota. GM and the U.A.W. also like to pretend that painful strikes are a necessary evil in building a world-class car company. But the pain of this strike will be mild by comparison if the company fails to resolve its deeper problems...