Union members at the GM Fort Wayne production facility in Indiana will on strike authorization this week over the automaker’s decision to reassign 21 employees to different shifts. The move included reassigning workers who are not typically allowed to work on the assembly line. The Fort Wayne facility produces GM’s full-size pickup models, including the Chevy Silverado 1500 and GMC Sierra 1500, with approximately 1,300 units rolling off the line every day.
According to a recent report from Automotive News, workers will vote on the strike authorization measure on Wednesday, October 30th. If workers vote in favor of strike authorization, a strike is not necessarily guaranteed, as local union representatives would then meet with General Motors representatives in the hope of resolving the issue.
According to UAW Local 2209 shop chairman Rick LeTourneau, the issue lies in GM’s decision to move 21 employees from first shift assembly roles to second and third shift assembly roles. The move included yhe assignment of floor managers to assembly line positions, which, according to LeTourneau, is in violation of the current agreement between General Motors and the United Auto Workers (UAW) labor union.
Meanwhile, General Motors asserts that the decision was within the bounds of the agreement.
“GM is abiding by the provisions in our National and Local agreement with the UAW and there is not any practical or legal basis for a strike at Fort Wayne Assembly,” a GM spokesperson said.
GM’s Fort Wayne assembly plant is located in Roanoke, Indiana, and spans more than 3 million square feet. The facility employs roughly 3,800 employees across three shifts.
Last month, GM laid off 250 part-time temporary workers after it failed to reach an agreement with the UAW to find a solution in extending the worker’s employment. The part-time workers were laid off at the end of September after the union sought to make the workers full-time temps or possibly permanent employees. The latest strike authorization vote set for Wednesday is unrelated to last month’s temporary worker lay-offs.
Comments
And this is why Unions costs companies so much. It’s more flexibility and turnaround time as wages. At Toyota/Tesla, this would have been done already.
That is an ignorant comment! Those workers on day shift have to move to off shifts, change everything in their life and work an evening or midnight shift, while members of management do the same job they were doing on day shift! The Union is taking the right stand and they can let the unrepresented management people go to a 2nd or 3rd shift! The Shop Chair should be commended for standing up for his members!
Lets all have a pity party for the workers that might have to adjust their personal lives because their JOB requires them to work a different shift. People all over the world do this on a regular basis & get by just fine. Or maybe the overworked gm employees need to find employment elsewhere.
Nobody is holding a gun to their head and telling them they have to accept the change. They can always….get a different job.
Sounds like Gm is reducing supervisors who were previously in the management ranks, to go back to the hourly ranks, from which they came originally. If so, those transfers from salary back to hourly, have been in force for decades.
This is what happens when you let the unions make business decisions for the company. Also why I’ll likely be buying a vehicle that’s not made by over paid union workers in the future. I’ve never owned anything but GM but that will change in the future.
I have been a union worker in the building trades. Our contract states that our shift can be changed with a 2 week written notice if the member requests it
Jd I don’t know what you do for a living but if you think assembly line workers are over paid you are dead wrong. I have been to the Corvette assembly plant and there is no way I could do that job. I would go nuts being in one spot all day long.
Do companies/businesses not have the right to run their shifts the way they need to without the employees throwing a fit & threatening to strike?? Between the government & the unions, companies are really in a battle to actually make business decisions now days. I can see why the option to build somewhere else is so attractive and it’s not just lower wages.
It sure seems that GM’s refusal to make temporary workers permanent or full-time temps is now the price assembly line workers are paying. Don’t question us or ….
The upper level management makes decisions that is in their best interest for the moment with little regard for the people who actually build the products. No workers, no products