A tentative four-year contract between the United Auto Workers and General Motors, although it improved the path of “in-progression” workers to reach the top salary level and included an $11,000 ratification bonus for senior employees, has been voted down by members of Bowling Green’s United Auto Workers Local 2164. The final vote at the local plant was 487-393 to reject the contract and continue a strike against GM that started Sept. 16.
The Corvette plant workers voted with their feet when they joined UAW members throughout the country in walking picket lines.
They voted Wednesday at the ballot box to continue their strike that reached its 38th day Wednesday. Their votes will be tallied along with those from nearly 50,000 UAW members on strike, and a final verdict on the contract will be announced Friday.
It wasn’t the result UAW Local 2164 President Jack Bowers expected. Bowers said he thought the improvement in the timetable for new full-time workers to reach the highest wage level of $32.32 per hour and GM’s agreement to maintain the current health insurance plan would make the contract acceptable.
But some local UAW members, after poring over the contract that was presented to them Sunday, found reason to reject it.
Bill Mulligan, one of the workers transferred to Bowling Green from the GM plant in Lordstown, Ohio, was not happy that GM management wouldn’t agree to reopen that plant and two others that were closed earlier this year.
“I’m not happy with this contract,” Mulligan said after casting his vote. “I think all of us that came from Lordstown voted no. I really didn’t think anything was going back to Lordstown, but I was hoping.”
Mulligan also expressed skepticism about the contract’s promise to bring temporary workers up to full-time status after four years.
“I was hired as a temp,” Mulligan said. “All they’re going to do is lay them off before their time is up, and then they’ll have to start over again.”
Another UAW member, James Hawks, voted against the contract despite seeing some positive aspects to it.
“There are some good things, like the health insurance,” said Hawks, one of those in-progression workers looking to get to the top pay scale. “But I voted no and didn’t have to think twice about it.”
Hawks said he could benefit from the contract but he said many of his co-workers would not.
“I can’t just look out for myself,” he said. “I have to look at my fellow workers and consider if it’s fair for them. If it doesn’t help us all, it helps none of us.”
In-progression worker Angie Bledsoe said she voted against the contract for similar reasons.
“We should be looking out for each other,” Bledsoe said. “They’re planning to add a second shift at the plant, but what happens when they shut that second shift down? People who have transferred here may be gone.”
Votes that have been reported from other locals around the country indicate the final vote could be close. Workers at the GM Warren Technical Center in Michigan voted to approve the contract, but UAW members at the GM plant in Spring Hill, Tenn., rejected it. Meanwhile, United Auto Workers Local 598 at a pickup truck plant in Flint, Mich. – one of GM’s biggest plants – approved the contract Wednesday. The local’s Facebook page said 60.9 percent voted in favor, while 39.1 percent were against. The local did not post the number of votes, but about 5,000 union members work at the plant.
If the contract isn’t approved by Friday, the strike will continue and those on the picket line will continue getting by on their weekly $275 checks from the union’s strike fund.
Hawks, for one, is prepared.
“I saw this coming, so I was able to save some money,” he said. “Everything I own is paid for, so I’m doing fine. If this lasts three months, I’m ready.”
The strike is already the longest UAW work stoppage since a 67-day walkout in 1970.
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Written by Don Sergent. Cross-posted from the
Bowling Green Daily News via the Kentucky Press News Service.