Strike halts local negotiations

Local contract talks had been progressing, but some issues remain.

By DON SHILLING

VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR

LORDSTOWN — The nationwide autoworkers’ strike postponed bargaining on a local labor contract that’s critical to the future of General Motors’ Lordstown plant.

Local negotiations were continuing until Sunday when United Auto Workers officials in Detroit let local leaders know a strike deadline was being set.

Ben Strickland, shop chairman of UAW Local 1112 in Lordstown, said local talks were set aside so local leaders could gear up for the strike. He said he wasn’t sure when the talks would resume but expected it would be a while.

Strickland and John Donahoe, Lordstown plant manager, said in January that a new local contract was crucial for the plant to gain a long-term commitment from GM to continue producing a vehicle at Lordstown. Production of the Chevrolet Cobalt is scheduled only until June 2009.

The local contract covers job classifications, outsourcing of work to nonunion suppliers and other plant-specific issues, while the national contract governs wages and benefits.

Strickland said talks had been progressing “relatively smoothly” before the strike started.

“We were mutually coming together, slowly but surely,” he said.

Some issues unresolved

Union bargainers are willing to consider GM’s demands for cost-cutting measures, but they also have issues that they want GM to act on, he said.

“Some of them have been addressed. Some are still standing out there,” said Strickland, who didn’t want to be specific.

Local bargainers have been at the table consistently for about a month. The talks had kicked off earlier this year, but UAW leaders in Detroit suspended the talks in the spring. They didn’t want local talks getting ahead of the national ones.

Once the national talks heated up, the future of local plants such as Lordstown became a key issue. National UAW leaders say they want assurances that GM will keep its U.S. plants operating in exchange for agreeing to the company’s demands, such as taking over a health-care plan for union retirees.

Support

Strickland said he is supporting the strike because the UAW is working to protect local jobs.

“They have our best interests in mind,” he said.

Sue Barone of Salem, who has 28 years at the plant, said this is a stand the UAW had to take.

“It’s about our job security. It’s worth going out for,” she said.

She added that the Lordstown plant is vulnerable because the small-car market is so competitive that GM has had trouble making a profit.

“It isn’t about our plant, what we do or where the plant’s at. It’s about small cars,” she said.

shilling@vindy.com