Stormy labor relations are a thing of the past

Cooperation in cutting costs led to the Cobalt's coming to Lordstown.
By DON SHILLING
VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR
LORDSTOWN -- The auto plant here seemed a highly unlikely place for General Motors to invest $1 billion not long ago.
In 1996 -- just six years before GM announced its plan to upgrade the plant -- labor relations were so bad that workers staged a wildcat strike.
Already on edge because of other issues, workers walked off their job when GM fired the late Al Alli, the longtime shop chairman of United Auto Workers Local 1112. The plant was idled for a day and a half.
Workers returned to the line under orders from a federal judge and after pleading from Alli, who would be reinstated three months later.
The dispute was reminiscent of the labor unrest at the plant in the early 1970s, which some have referred to as the "war years."
Both periods, however, were forgotten in 2002 when company executives and union officials joined to announce that the new car was coming.
In fact, good labor relations was the main reason the plant received the Cobalt, said David Cole, director of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Not only had the two sides agreed on a new labor contract, but they worked out a plan to keep the Lordstown plant operating during the remodeling.
Change
The transformation of that relationship -- from mistrust in 1996 to harmony in 2002 -- began with a simple meeting between Alli and former plant manager Herman Maass.
In large part, Maass was responsible for turning around the labor relations at the plant, said John Russo, labor studies professor at Youngstown State University.
Maass, who retired in 2001 and was replaced by Maureen Midgley, had been named plant manager shortly after Alli's firing in 1996. Several months later, a senior GM executive told Maass that the company planned to shut down the plant in 2000 and put its next small car model elsewhere.
He passed along the news to Alli and suggested that they both were going to retire from Lordstown and should think about their reputations. Both men agreed that they didn't want to be known as the ones who closed the plant, said Maass, who now lives in Tennessee.
Maass told Alli that the management and union would have to work together to save the plant.
"I told him that I knew how to do that, but I wasn't going to fight him," Maass said.
Alli didn't fight, however, and instead led the union membership to understand work-rule changes were necessary, Maass said.
It was a tough sell for Alli, but Maass said the plant had to cut costs to have a chance at staying open. To make the plant more efficient, the two men talked about adopting new work rules that would give management more flexibility in running the plant, reducing staffing and increasing work loads.
"It was those lines of demarcation, 'That's not my job,"' Maass said. "A lot of those fences would have to be torn down to improve efficiency."
Eventually, the threat of closing passed as the union and management began cooperating.
New contracts
In 2001, the UAW locals at the assembly and fabrication plants passed new labor contracts that would take effect if GM invested in the plants to prepare them for a new car model.
Union members agreed to ease work rule restrictions and combine job classifications. The number of employees in the plants fell as retiring workers were not replaced.
Jim Graham, president of UAW Local 1112 at the assembly plant, called the contract the salvation of the plant because it showed GM that the complex could be viable for the long term.
Despite being ratified by union members in 2001, the contract for the assembly plant hasn't been finalized, however. Graham said negotiations are continuing to fine-tune certain parts of the contract, though union leaders have declined to talk about specifics.
Putting down the sticks
In addition to cutting costs, Maass was also working on improving labor relations.
He recalled a meeting in his first year where he realized he had to take action. Instead of accomplishing its stated purpose, the meeting consisted of participants provoking each other.
It seemed to Maass like both sides had long, pointed sticks and were intent on poking the eyes of the people on the other side. At the end of the meeting, he told them that nothing had been accomplished except both sides having bloody eyes.
"I ... [told them] I was going to take away their sticks," Maass said.
He followed that up by stressing to managers that it was up to them to take the first step in changing the confrontational attitude.
Maass said he learned about cooperative union relations at Saturn's plant in Spring Hill, Tenn. He was plant manager of the body systems plant there before coming to Lordstown.
At Saturn, he didn't have a private office, and his desk was right next to the union's shop chairman, who is the lead bargainer.
"Everything that was going on with the union, I knew. And everything that was going on with the plant, he knew," Maass said.
Saturn stressed that the company and union were partners and had the belief that union officials would make the same decisions as company officials if they had the same information, Maass said.
Team approach
Eventually, labor relations at Lordstown improved, with the creation of problem-solving teams being one result, he said.
Previously, a foreman and line operator would meet to try to resolve a problem on the line. With the teams, anyone who could make a contribution could be part of finding the solution. This often led to workers on the assembly line joining with those in the body shop or paint shop, which opened lines of communication, Maass said.
He said he is glad that cutting costs and improving labor relations led to GM announcing a new model for Lordstown.
"I felt I hadn't finished the job when I retired. But when the announcement was made, it was like getting the job done. I felt great," he said.
Maass said he was at the plant in August and was happy when Graham assured him that the cooperation was continuing.
Graham said he credits the union members for agreeing to contract changes to keep the plant.
Many were anxious about the possibility of a plant closing but followed the advice of union leaders that the changes were necessary. And they continued to improve the quality of the cars being built, he said.
Graham said that managers have been listening to workers as they prepared the plant to build the Cobalt. Workers are looking for ways to help make the car a success, he said.
"They are going to be the experts in building the car," he said.