Word: uaw
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...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...
With the negotiations in a crucial phase, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger declined to discuss Chrysler. "He's not talking to anyone," a UAW spokeswoman said...
...UAW knows where things are headed. "I don't think this is going to have a very happy ending," says one UAW official, who asked not to be identified. But he noted it was inevitable the union will have to accept additional cuts. One of the union's fears, though, is that the negotiations turn into a sort of arbitrage that sets active Chrysler workers against retirees - a split the UAW has always sought to avoid. "People are angry. Where do you draw the line and say to hell with it and just let them go into bankruptcy?" says...