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UAW wants to eliminate two-tier wage system
LORDSTOWN
The United Auto Workers union is calling for an end to a two-tier wage system as part of 2015 contract negotiations, a move welcomed by union representatives at the General Motors complex here.
According to Reuters news service, a top UAW official told reporters earlier this week the union wants to eliminate the system, which pays new automotive workers less than veteran workers.
“The international executive board hates two tiers,” said Norwood Jewell, who will be one of three vice presidents at the union come June.
He said the two-tier system was not a choice, but rather an unfortunate result of a struggling industry during the economic downtown.
“We didn’t do two tiers because it’s a wonderful thing,” he said this week at a General Motors Co. plant in Flint, Mich., according to reports. “We hate them. We intend to eliminate them over time.”
A GM representative from the Lordstown plant could not comment Thursday on the UAW announcement.
Current contracts are up in 2015, and UAW will negotiate new contracts with automakers General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group in Michigan.
Entry workers initially earn $16 per hour, and that rate rises to $19 over time. Meanwhile, veteran workers make an hourly wage of $28 an hour.
About 16 percent of GM’s total workers belong to the lower tier of the pay system.
But at the Lordstown plant, which manufactures the popular Chevrolet Cruze, that number is closer to 25 percent.
At the facility’s fabricating plant, 344 of the nearly 1,400 employees are paid an entry-level wage, said Robert Morales, president of UAW Local 1714.
Glenn Johnson, president of UAW Local 1112, which represents workers at the assembly plant, said nearly 800 of that plant’s 2,800 workers are making less than veteran workers.
It’s time, he said, to bring the issue to the bargaining table.
“When times were tough, our members were the first to step up” and ratify the less-than-desirable measure with an 85 percent approval rate, he said. “Now that GM has recovered, it is just an injustice to our workers.”
The two-tier system has been in place since 2007, Morales said, and there have been some turbulent times at the Lordstown plant since then, with 2009 layoffs that drove workers back to two shifts.
Recent GM sales have been good, and workers moved back to three shifts in 2010.
But the wage issue, Morales said, is a topic of discussion for workers.
“When they’re working a line and the guy next to them is making more, that’s a concern,” he said.