Workers strike at crossover plant

The 2-year-old GM plant has been operating without its own local contract.

DELTA TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — Hundreds of workers streamed out of a General Motors Corp. assembly plant that makes crossover vehicles Thursday, threatening the automaker’s ability to build one of its most popular products.

United Auto Workers members at the plant in Delta Township walked off their jobs just after a 10 a.m. deadline passed. The factory near Lansing makes the Buick Enclave, Saturn Outlook and GMC Acadia crossover vehicles that are selling well for GM.

The strike is the first against GM over a local contract since a lengthy walkout in Flint back in 1998, said GM spokesman Dan Flores.

Tim Berry, 50, of Holt, one of the 2-year-old plant’s 3,400 hourly workers, said the strike was justified.

“Since we’ve been out here, we haven’t really had a local agreement,” the 32-year GM quality control worker said.

Local plants negotiate their own operating agreements separate from the national contract, which was settled last year. The local contract deals with issues such as overtime and work rules.

Flores said GM was disappointed that workers left their jobs.

“We remain focused on reaching an agreement as soon as possible,” he said.

Industry analysts have speculated that the strike is an effort by the union to get GM involved in a two-month UAW walkout at parts supplier American Axle and Manufacturing Holdings Inc.

Flores would not comment when asked about a possible American Axle connection and said he did not know specific issues involved in the Delta Township walkout.

The UAW has been on strike against American Axle for nearly two months, and more than 30 GM plants have been affected by that strike.

But so far, the strike has mainly hit production of GM’s trucks and sport utility vehicles, which were selling slowly anyway.

The crossover plant strike could have a more serious impact. GM has only a 40-day inventory of the Buick Enclave, compared with an inventory of more than 150 days on some large trucks and SUVs when the American Axle strike began, according to Ward’s AutoInfoBank. A 60-day supply is considered ideal in the industry.

As strikers picketed, Steve Bramos, shop chairman for Local 602 at Delta Township, said the walkout has nothing do with American Axle.

“This is about local labor issues that impact the work force,” he said.

Since the factory is so new, it was operating under a standard local agreement, he said.

“It actually needed some clarity,” he said. “This is actually our first real operating agreement.”

He would not get into specifics of the negotiations.

Even without the strike, the plant likely would have been shut down Thursday due to a lack of parts made by Alliance Interiors, another supply company at which the UAW is on strike.

Alliance Interiors opened in 2006 to supply carpets, acoustic insulation and other products to GM.

In addition to Delta Township, workers at metal fabricating plant near Grand Rapids and a transmission plant in Warren, Mich., also have threatened to strike.