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UAW: GM Has The Fastest-Shrinking Footprint In America

The United Auto Workers union says it will fight hard for new product allocation throughout its contract negotiations with General Motors, which closed several US plants at the end of 2018 whilst giving new products to plants in Mexico in South Korea.

“General Motors has the fastest-shrinking (production and workforce) footprint in America,” UAW president Gary Jones told local Lordstown, Ohio newspaper The Vindicator. “We will leave no stone unturned. You put us on the block, our location on the block, we will fight to keep these plants open and allocate products here on American soil.”

GM Arlington Texas Assembly Plant

The UAW remains determined to have a new product allocated to the Lordstown Assembly Complex that GM idled earlier this year. It’s highly unlikely the union will win that fight, though, with GM already in talks with commercial vehicle company Workhorse to sell the facility. The UAW must first approve the Workhorse sale, however, so it will have some leverage throughout the negotiations.

General Motors Chairman and CEO Mary Barra meets with plant employees at the GM Fort Wayne Assembly plant Thursday, May 30, 2019 before announcing the company is investing $24 million in the plant to expand production of full size Chevrolet Silverado 1500 and GMC Sierra 1500 pickups in Roanoke, Indiana. (Photo by Ryan Hake for General Motors)

With global automotive sales expected to dwindle in coming years and ride hailing and ride sharing services expected to become even more popular, GM and other major automotive companies are exercising caution when it comes to planning for the future. This is all happening at a time when automakers are also feeling pressure to develop costly electric and autonomous vehicles or risk being left behind by new competition from Silicon Valley and China.

“While this industry has always been competitive, we must admit it’s only getting more so,” GM CEO Mary Barra said ahead of the UAW negotiations. “More than ever, we must be agile, decisive and disciplined. We must be proactive on all fronts because we are not here merely to survive. We are here to lead it and to win.”

2019 Chevrolet Silverado Medium Duty production at Navistar’s Springfield Assembly Plant 001

The Vindicator believes that if Lordstown were to get a new product, it would be one of GM’s upcoming new electric models. GM is more likely to build its EVs in North America than abroad, it seems, as they would have higher profit margins than a mass-market product like the new Chevrolet Trailblazer, for example, and may need extra focus placed on it with regards to quality control.

GM’s contract with the UAW expires in September.

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Source: The Vindicator

Sam loves to write and has a passion for auto racing, karting and performance driving of all types.

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Comments

  1. While new product to Lordstowns is not likely it could get them more grantees offers at other plants and will be their bargaining chip for the UAW.

    Reply
  2. The greatest failure of the bankruptcy proceedings was keeping the UAW along for the ride. Foreign automakers can build cars in the US for less than the D3 thanks to the union.

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    1. Thanks to the DemoRats…”all power grab, all the time.” Whatever’s good for the Rats, well nothing else matters…,

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    2. Hmmm…. $10 billion in profits is not enough? The only failure of the bankruptcy was that there was not enough checks and balances to keep production in the US and not have it moved to third world nations.

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      1. Let me get this straight, you’re fine that bankruptcy proceedings threw a lifeline to the UAW–one of the main causes of the D3’s slow decline into insolvency through self-serving, short-sighted, and corrupt contract negotiations–and your take on this situation is that the government should have eliminated GM’s only leverage (global production) against this entity known for its corrupt practices?

        Yet you reject the premise that allowing GM to negotiate fresh contracts outside the union would have dramatically increased their incentive to build domestically, despite knowing full well that foreign automakers already have this benefit when building in our country?

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        1. If the union is discouraging jobs, why did FCA just commit to 6500 new UAW positions in the Detroit area? If the union is costing jobs, why did Machete Mary cut 11,000 satisfied jobs that were nonunion? What you and others fail to see and blame is re puss poor management GM has had over the past 4 decades.

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          1. Your job examples lack any context whatsoever and amount to tiny proportions of a much larger industry. You can’t even admit that it’s a competitive advantage when foreign automakers including Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and VW can negotiate manufacturing jobs in the US outside the UAW.

            Nobody said GM’s management wasn’t another key factor in bankruptcy, suggesting that is your attempt at setting up a strawman to knock down. It’s indisputable fact that the UAW was a primary cause of GM’s struggle to build profitable vehicles. Profit per car sunk as union pay and benefits piled up relentlessly, and major concessions were non-existent until the company was collapsing.

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            1. The “competitive advantage” the transplants hold today is almost nonexistant. Remember the UAW/Unifor was not the ones who gave the market products that bombed in the marketplace or ones that were loosing thousands of dollars per unit. It was managements poor decision making.

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          2. Ok…how would you run the company and ensure its long-term survival in a global market? Specifics and examples of past successes with your strategy, please.

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    3. Go work for slave labor. Make $15 an hour, while they sell the car for $40000 plus.

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      1. The broom pusher makes more, seasoned UAW PERSONNEL makes good money, I’m retired Teamsters brotherhood. And dema-rat stay at home all will be well , MAKE AMERICA GREATER .

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  3. While I would like to see GM “increasing” US production the UAW has made that impossible, long term. The union would never allow itself to be decertified so this is the company’s way of getting rid of it for good. It’s employees should decertify NOW while they have jobs. Perhaps then can the trend be reversed?

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    1. I feel that if it were not for the unions, even more US and Canadian jobs would be moved to third-world nations.

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  4. Wage increases for all union dues members! stop paying for nothing. Not won in 20 years, what have you paid them?

    Reply
  5. I was in Detroit in 1990 when GM said it was closeing Manufacturing in North America and I said it would never work, I was told to look at the big picture. Canada from 1961 lost 21 opperating GM assembly in house jobs under UAW and CAW now the doors are almost shut under UNIFOR. YOU MUST LOVE WHAT THE UNIONS HAVE DONE XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

    Reply
  6. Just stop buying models made else where. My truck 3500HD Flint Michigan, ZL1 Lansing Grand River Michigan USA. THINK ABOUT IT, BEFORE YOU TAKE A JOB FROM A UAW PERSONNEL. CAR HAULER TRAILER PACE MADE IN USA !!! If it don’t make dollars it don’t make cents !!!

    Reply
  7. Trucks, Camaro’s and Corvettes are the only GM vehicles I would consider buying. The Corvette is a bit rich for me and they are going to let the Camaro die in 2023. Not a lot to choose from. I could care less about electric or self driving vehicles.

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  8. mammas don’t let your babies grow up to be autoworkers ….

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    1. Let them work at a gas station selling fuel to imports ? While living with mamma till they get off porole that always works, right ?

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      1. an autoworker’s competition is a mexican autoworker making $4/hr and a robot making $0/hr.

        you don’t have to be nostradamus to see where this is going.

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        1. A lot of the engineering work is being moved to Mexico and India as well.

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  9. The Question asked of me as to how I would run GM to stay operational it was an industry started in Canada as a carriage company that also was combined with a US carriage company that in a simular build were not dedicated to one type of carriage in order to supply people with what was ordered. The buyer should buy today what is thought is the profit making product. The biggest amount of buyers for GM products were their workers and as ther workers have gone so has their sales. The Unions in my time went from 5 bucks a month to 2 hours a month dues. Then think about the millions of Union workers working for 24 hours a year for nothing in pensions after retirement . I am 26 years without any increase. I have just stopped buying GM.

    Reply

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