UAW: Many await buyout

About half of Lordstown's hourly work force can retire with full benefits.
By DON SHILLING
VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR
LORDSTOWN -- Many hourly workers at the General Motors complex here hope to retire soon with a buyout, union presidents said.
Those workers flooded the union leaders with questions Monday after reading a Detroit News report that GM is considering buying out up to 20,000 workers.
"It took me an hour to leave the plant this morning," said Jim Graham, president of United Auto Workers Local 1112 at the car assembly plant.
About 1,600 of the local's 3,400 members have 30 years of service and can retire with full benefits. If GM puts together an incentive package to encourage workers to retire, many Lordstown workers will take it, Graham added.
Jim Kaster, president of UAW Local 1714 at the adjacent fabricating plant, said 750 of his local's 1,500 members have 30 years of service. "A lot of them are waiting for a buyout," he said.
Advanced negotiations
The newspaper article said GM and the UAW are in advanced negotiations over the buyout. By encouraging workers to retire, GM would have a place for workers idled by the closing of plants and its former workers who now are employed by Delphi Corp.
GM has said it is liable for between $3 billion and $12 billion tied to the bankruptcy filing of Delphi, an auto parts supplier that used to be part of GM. Negotiations between GM, Delphi and unions are said to include returning part of the Delphi work force to GM.
GM has started to close plants as it tries to recover financially, but its union contract calls for workers to be paid even if they have no work.
Graham and Kaster said they had no information on the possible buyouts, though they were to meet with UAW officials in Cleveland today. They weren't sure if any information on the buyouts would be provided.
"We've told people to hang tight until we know what the facts are," Kaster said.
If a large number of local workers accept buyouts, GM will be replacing them with workers from other plants where production is being curtailed or eliminated, Graham said.
Transferred workers
Over the past 18 months, the assembly plant in Lordstown has received about 100 workers from plants in Maryland, New Jersey and Georgia as GM has cut back operations, he said.
Rick Wagoner, GM chairman, has said that "accelerated attrition" of older workers is a top priority as GM looks to cut 30,000 factory jobs by 2008 and become profitable again.
Locally, plant and union officials in Lordstown say workers may be working overtime later this year as production starts on the Pontiac G5, a new model being added to the plant. The G5 is a sister car of the Chevrolet Cobalt, which was launched in October 2004.
shilling@vindy.com