Word: gm
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...boil down to a collision between an irresistible force (worker demands for job security) and an immovable object (industry insistence on lower operating costs). General Motors and the United Auto Workers have just been in such a collision. A job action that began among 2,300 workers at a GM body-stamping plant in Lordstown, Ohio, expanded to nine GM assembly plants before the two sides finally reached a tentative settlement. It had idled 42,000 workers over the issue of the company's right to determine which jobs would be eliminated under a sweeping corporate restructuring scheduled...
...surface, the strike was spurred by GM's decision to close down a tool-and-die shop -- but both sides know that larger issues are at stake. What + the corporation insists is a drive to banish outmoded practices that have made its factories the least efficient in the auto industry is perceived by the union as an effort to eliminate jobs. Dave Kimmel, president of UAW Local 1714, said his members received support from workers at distant plants whose weekly incomes are dropping from $700 to $200 a week. "Job security is important to everybody," he said. But the strike...
...which employs 1,600 and pumps millions into the community. In January USAir closed most of its hub at Dayton International Airport. Heavy dependence on the auto industry gives residents the jitters: with eight plants employing about 20,000 workers, Montgomery County has the largest concentration of domestic GM jobs outside Michigan...
...move surely did not pass unnoticed by GM competitors Ford and Chrysler. While they still offer fully paid health-care plans to their employees, both companies are similarly groaning under the burden of escalating health costs. The changes also set the stage for a battle next year with the U.A.W., which will resist any effort to shift health costs to its members. Says Don Douglas, president of U.A.W. Local 594 in Pontiac, Michigan: "There's no doubt it's going to be a major issue in next year's negotiations...
...GM and the union are already at odds because of company plans to close 21 plants. Last week 2,300 GM workers struck a parts plant in Lordstown, Ohio, over job security. The action halted the assembly line for the much touted Saturn, which depends on a steady flow of auto components to meet its Japanese-inspired "just in time" production system...