Among autoworkers, seniority is hot issue in new contract talks

Some workers would
benefit from policy change, but others would not.

DETROIT FREE PRESS

DETROIT — If you thought health care sparked heated debate among union autoworkers, try bringing up the issue of seniority.

One of the basic concepts governing rights in the union, seniority allows workers with longevity first choice of shift selection, prime jobs and vacation time.

And even more important, at a time when U.S. automakers are scaling back, it determines the order in which workers are laid off.

How seniority is determined — by a worker’s time at the corporation, start date at a particular plant or an arbitrary date picked by the union and corporation — varies by company and occasionally by plant or circumstance.

In terms of importance, workers rank seniority rights up there with health care and pensions.

No matter what happens, however, it’s unlikely to be the end of it. For every worker who would benefit from a change in policy, another would be put at a disadvantage.

“It’s becoming an issue more and more,” as the U.S. auto industry scales back, said Matt Davidson, 50, who works at Chrysler LLC’s Warren Truck Assembly. Warren Truck is to shut down for two weeks in October as the company adjusts to match supply with demand, Davidson said.

All three Detroit automakers have closed plants and eliminated shifts in recent years.

Proposal

A proposal to reinstate corporate seniority rules for all GM employees was presented at the UAW bargaining convention in March in Detroit, and workers say they believe it was included in the initial proposal to GM from the UAW in the contract talks that began in mid-July.

The issue underscores the difficult balancing act the UAW faces as it works to reconcile the many special deals it has made to protect various constituencies.

“It’s the biggest issue to me,” said Eric Hildebrandt, 32, who is low in the seniority ranks at Chrysler’s Sterling Stamping plant because of a series of layoffs and transfers. He wants corporate seniority rights across the board.

At Chrysler, transferred workers’ in-plant seniority starts over each time they change plants, even if it’s because they were laid off. Ford’s rules are about the same.

“The problem with that system is it’s the same people who keep getting laid off,” Hildebrandt said.

Though there are situations where certain groups of workers cut special deals that allow them to carry corporate seniority to a new plant — disrupting existing seniority — a hotbed of the issue lately has been General Motors Corp.’s Spring Hill, Tenn., vehicle assembly plant.

Spring Hill difference

Most GM workers who switch plants carry their actual seniority date or a seniority date of Jan. 7, 1985, whichever is later. But when Spring Hill was established, GM workers had to forfeit rights to their corporate seniority for in-plant purposes and start over with their Saturn start dates.

Giving up those rights was a nonissue at the time, those workers say, because all new Saturn workers did the same. They also were promised that they wouldn’t be laid off.

But the forfeiture of GM corporate seniority for in-plant purposes became an issue in 2005 when Spring Hill workers were folded back into the national contract between GM and the UAW, reverting to traditional GM rules — except they did not get their corporate seniority back.

And now, as workers at the low end of the Spring Hill seniority roster are laid off while workers with more Saturn seniority — but sometimes with less GM seniority — work to prepare the plant for a new vehicle, there is a movement to restore corporate seniority.