LORDSTOWN Fabricating plant workers approve tentative agreement

The four-year contract provides a signing bonus of $3,000 in the first year.
By PETER H. MILLIKENand DON SHILLING
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITERS
LORDSTOWN -- Workers at one of two local General Motors' plants have approved a tentative agreement on a new national labor contract.
Members of United Auto Workers Local 1714 at the Lordstown fabricating plant approved the deal Monday by an 87 percent margin of skilled trade workers and 85 percent of production workers.
The plant has about 2,200 hourly workers.
Members of UAW Local 1112 at the adjacent assembly plant are to vote Thursday and Friday. Local 1112 has about 4,100 members working at the assembly plant.
"In this type of economic situation that the country's in today, I thought it was fantastic because we lost nothing,'' Jim Kaster, president of Local 1714, said of the contract.
"We gained over the four years $18,500," he added. "Health and safety was improved. They've earmarked $9.8 million for health-related research in the plant," he said of GM, adding that the new agreement adds a floating holiday.
Skilled workers will get a 30-cent-an-hour pay increase above what other workers will get, he noted.
UAW locals around the country are voting on the agreement reached two weeks ago in Detroit.
The four-year contract provides a signing bonus of $3,000 in the first year, a bonus of 3 percent of annual pay in the second year, a 2 percent raise in the third year and a 3 percent raise in the fourth year.
It would be the first year since 1996 that UAW members will not receive a raise in their base pay.
Health care
The UAW said, however, that a top priority in the talks was having GM and other automakers continue paying 100 percent of health-care premiums. The big three automakers agreed to that.
Some health-care costs would go up, however, including workers paying $10 extra for opting for name-brand drugs instead of generic ones. That would be on top of a $10 co-pay.
While pension payments would increase 9 percent for workers who retire during this contract, current retirees would get no raise in their pensions for the first time since the 1960s.
Unlike the previous contract, this agreement allows plant closings. GM has said it intends to close a plant in Baltimore, which employs 1,100 UAW workers and makes Chevrolet Astro and GMC Safari vans.
It also intends to close a powertrain plant in Saginaw, Mich., which has less than 400 workers and an office building in Detroit.