UAW reps meet with GM officials

Staff report

LORDSTOWN

Leaders from the international United Auto Workers union along with the local representation from UAW Local 1112 are meeting with General Motors officials to go over local contract negotiations.

“We have folks in town, and we are going through a fact-finding mission to see if there’s an impasse,” said Glenn Johnson, president of UAW Local 1112, which represents the assembly-plant workers here. “Both entities have people figuring out where we are.”

A strike has to be granted by the international union, and “in order for them to grant, we would have to exhaust all avenues within their means,” Johnson said.

The assembly-plant workers, about 3,000, build the Chevrolet Cruze. Last year, they approved the national contract with GM. Ninety percent of 1112 membership voted on the national agreement, with 72 percent approving the contract, which includes pay raises across the workforce, improved health care for tier-two workers and an $8,000 signing bonus.

“This is just one of the layers and one of the steps we need to go through,” Johnson said of the local contract negotiations.

The Lordstown plant, which is preparing to build the all-new, next-generation Cruze, will be back to three shifts by the first week of February after a December shutdown.

The new Cruze is expected to hit sales floors this spring.