General Motors has terminated 240 temporary workers at its Fort Wayne Assembly plant in Indiana following a failed attempt by the UAW to convince the automaker to hire them on as full-time employees.
According to The Detroit Free Press, GM recently sought to hire more workers at Fort Wayne Assembly, which builds the light duty Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra. The UAW wanted GM to fill the positions with existing part-time workers, who would be converted to full-time under the agreement, but GM says their limited seniority meant they were not eligible for full-time employment with the company. Rich LeTourneau, chairman of Local 2209, told The Detroit Free Press that GM said if “we can’t come to a temp agreement, they will be forced to hire transfers on layoff from Hamtramck,” and let go of the temp workers.
“We had some conditions where they had to hire some of these people, but they refused to hires them,” said LeTourneau. “We have 178 people retiring by March 1 and GM has no plan to fill those jobs. They rejected our offer to fill them with conversions of temps.”
GM CEO Mary Barra at Fort Wayne in 2019
GM recently converted about 930 of its U.S. workers to full-time status, 148 of which were located at Fort Wayne Assembly. The automaker is also expected to hire on more temporary workers as full-time in the coming months. In an email sent to The Free Press, GM spokesman David Barnas said the company was willing to keep the Fort Wayne temp workers it laid off, but they simply “could not reach an agreement with the UAW,” over their employment status.
“We appreciate the hard work of our employees and their contributions to GM,” Barnas said of the now-terminated employees. “We certainly wish them well in their future endeavors.”
The terminated employees had been with the company from eight months to two years, the UAW told The Free Press. The union also said the employees’ temporary letters expire Monday and that most left over the weekend.
GM is currently trying to replenish its pickup stock after the 40-day UAW strike caused a shortage of the automaker’s hot-selling and highly profitable light duty pickup trucks. In December it was reported that Fort Wayne was running at full capacity, with three shifts cycling five days a week and employees also coming in for two Saturdays every month. Flint Assembly, which builds the Silverado HD and Sierra HD trucks, implemented mandatory overtime and was also running three shifts, six days a week throughout December.
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Source: The Detroit Free Press
Comments
Oshawa Assembly Complex had been finishing ,painting ,hardware and chassis finishing work on thousands of Fort Wayne trucks .If they truly wanted more 1500 series trucks they wouldn’t have closed out this award winning facility with an almost new paint shop and letting 2000 employees go from one of their highest quality plants in North America serving Canada and part of the US formerly with Chev.Impalas ,Cadillac XTS and 1500 trucks for years!
I hope that they didn’t have to lay off any of the Mexicans in the GM salio mexico truck plant.
Americans are suckers. They bailed gM out of bankruptcy to keep good paying jobs in America.
Now Americans are out of work and Mexicans are not.
Screw you mary Barry.
The Canadian Government also gave GM and Chrysler-Canada $10 Billion dollars to avoid bankruptcy in 2008 and save them, subsequently they moved the Separate Oshawa truck plant to Mexico and then pulled Buick Regal ,Impala Cadillac from Oshawa Car Assembly almost all new product has since gone to Mexico ,China ,and Korea all non -volunteers to help save them in the tough economic times of 2008-9 as you Ex GM’r pointed out so well about LOYALTY to the North American market place ,thank you !
UAW is a cancer
The UAW is mostly regular people going to work and doing their jobs. Sounds like you wouldn’t know anything about that xdud.
Some UAW leaders that have gone bad and it gives a bad impression to those who know nothing about working on a line all day long.
How about GM reopen their plants in Victoria and South Australia and keep producing the Holden Commodore and they could also make the Corvette and Camaro, all badly needed in Australia.
Because of the temp.’s in Australia: the corvette & camaros would need heavy duty cooling system’s along w/”better oil lube material liquid’s to keep them cool”!
W/O the General Motor’s brand; There wouldn’t be a UNION! SO THE “(UAW)” NEEDS 2 [STOP] BEING GREEDY “OR” GM WILL CUT THE UNIONS STATUS FROM BEING AN ORGANIZATION W/IN GENERAL MOTORS!! The union is keeping the brands funding LOW!!
We talk about safety and security in the USA but I know what has caused it.The number one problem is our trade and with it we bring in everything that’s bad with it.We no longer have control over anything in our country and labor is getting hit harder every day.As what was originally intended for our country was an independence that we all could live with but are losing because of who is running it and I am not talking about our president.
The anti-GM propagandists that populate this board must likely own Ford or imports. Doesn’t seem to be a GM story written that doesn’t have them getting bashed by certain groups of people here.
I have worked in the mechanical electrical service field since 1966.After working in the auto repair service sector for 10 and becoming certified in 1976.This only served the people I have worked for and it did not put a extra dime in my paycheck.I did a employment change to the HVAC service business and the first companies I worked at had no benefits.At this point I had a opportunity to join a Trade Union.With no doubt it was the best decision I ever made.A good job with good benefits and constant training.Our Unions are the best thing that has happened to Labor in our Countries history.There are some problems like every other type of employment.Our main problem in the USA is Trade and because of it we have lost our Independence.