Judge denies dismissal of GM/UAW suit

Staff report

CLEVELAND

U.S. District Court Judge Benita Pearson on Thursday denied General Motors Co.’s request for a favorable ruling in a union-filed lawsuit over transfer rights of laid-off workers.

The suit, filed in January by the United Automobile Workers of America, claims GM is “circumventing” an agreement to transfer laid-off senior UAW employees to a GM assembly plant in Fort Wayne, Ind., instead staffing the plant with temporary workers for the launch of a new truck line.

The UAW claimed there were about 1,000 union seniority employees laid off nationwide at the start of the year, including 690 employees from the Lordstown plant, “many of whom have applied to transfer to openings at [the Fort Wayne plant].”

GM claims the union, through a grievance, “seeks to have temporary employees at Fort Wayne converted into regular ‘seniority employees’ rather than substituting them with other laid-off employees’ from the Lordstown plant” and sought to dismiss the suit on the grounds that GM’s staffing decisions can’t be directed through union grievance and litigation simultaneously.

Judge Pearson ruled the matters are separate, as the agreement establishes seniority rights for temporary employees who ultimately remain at the plant after a deadline stipulated in the agreement, and the grievance doesn’t seek to guarantee them permanent positions at the plant.

Last month, Judge Pearson denied a GM motion to move another pending UAW lawsuit to stop the Lordstown plant’s closure to the Michigan courts, “for the convenience of parties and witnesses,” as both the UAW and GM are headquartered in Detroit.

Judge Pearson ruled the “vast majority” of employees affected by the closures, 74 percent, were employed in the Ohio court’s Northern District, so the suit should remain in Ohio.