Word: uaw
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...carmaker's management is struggling to assemble a rescue package that in addition to any UAW givebacks will have to include closing more plants and getting big help from Italian carmaker Fiat, which would contribute its own small-car designs and technology. Failure would saddle major banks with $7 billion in new losses, leave Chrysler's former owner, Daimler AG on the hook for more than $1 billion in additional pension costs and wipe out the health care for thousands of Chrysler retirees...
...foot dragging on Chrysler is affecting GM, too. In a Friday conference call with the media, GM chairman Fritz Henderson lamented that GM's own union negotiations are being slowed because the UAW won't move forward until the Chrysler/Fiat negotiations are resolved. That makes sense: Whatever terms Chrysler gets will be a precedent for GM, too. GM faces a June 1 deadline from the U.S. government to produce sufficient cuts to ensure viability...
...understandable why the UAW isn't rushing to embrace a new agreement. According to Harley Shaiken, a labor expert at the University of California at Berkley and occasional consultant to the UAW, the union and its Canadian counterpart are grappling with demands for big cuts in their wages and benefits - on the order of 25% to 30% - by Chrysler and Fiat. The demanded rollbacks could reduce wages and benefits, presently pegged at $29 per hour, by $6 to $8 per hour. "There is no doubt these are very serious cuts and they're being made under very tight deadlines...
Many of the current negotiations trace back to the terms of the original government loans. As a condition of Chrysler's loan agreement, the UAW must accept a 50% reduction in payments to its retiree health care trust and match the Japanese transplants' hourly labor costs, says Chrysler spokeswoman Dianna Gutierrez. "The Canadian government has taken a similar position as it relates to the CAW," she notes...
...more large retailers could face problems not unlike those being faced by GM. The largest retailers have two advantages over car companies. For the most part, they do not have crushing debt loads. Secondly, they do not have the legacy labor costs that are a result of UAW negotiations with The Big Three, although some have pension plans that are not completely funded...