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More documents needed in lawsuit against UAW and GM
By Karl Henkel
YOUNGSTOWN
The defendants and plaintiffs will need to exchange additional documents before a case involving 28 General Motors Lordstown workers can move forward.
At a case-management conference Wednesday afternoon at the Thomas D. Lambros Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse on Market Street, U.S. District Judge Benita Y. Pearson outlined the next steps in a complex case in which the plaintiffs are seeking more than $6 million in back pay plus traditional positions with what they deem to be corresponding benefits and pay.
The suit, filed last April, alleges that former Delphi employees were hired at higher wages than the plaintiffs, who had more seniority.
The plaintiffs say that violated the union contract.
United Auto Workers Local 1112 refused to file a grievance on the workers’ behalf, according to the lawsuit.
An attorney for the union declined to comment Wednesday. Ben Strickland, Local 1112 shop chairman at GM Lordstown, said, “There’s nothing I need to say.”
The defendants, which include the national union, UAW Local 1112 and General Motors, will need to supply the plaintiffs with a list of “threshold issues” by Wednesday.
Those issues include who the plaintiffs believe is eligible to continue with the case and whether grievances pertaining to the case were filed in compliance with statute-of-limitations requirements.
The plaintiffs then will request documents by Feb. 17 from the defendants pertaining to an internal union appeal process.
Atty. Ken Myers, representing the plaintiffs, insists those documents are crucial to the case.
“It’s an irony for organizations as big as GM and the UAW to not have these records,” Myers said. “You think they would keep better records.”
Those documents, which Myers says could identify which of the 28 workers attended an internal union appeal, or were represented at the meeting, could help prove that all 28 are eligible to continue with the case.
If those documents do not exist, “things get a little murky,” he said. “Right now, murky works in favor of the union.”
The defendants have 30 days from Feb. 17 to produce documents. A phone conference April 2 will determine if Myers needs to depose, or question under oath, any of the defendants.
April 20 is the deadline for the defense to file a motion for dismissal.
Myers said even if some of the 28 plaintiffs can’t move forward with the case — he said as few as four could be allowed to move forward — he does not think the case will be dismissed.