This year UAW and GM are asking each facility to observe Workers’ Memorial Day on Friday, April 27, 2018.  The purpose of this day is to honor the memory of workers who have either lost their lives or have been injured from work-related incidents.  It is also an opportunity to promote and heighten the awareness of safety inside and outside the workplace.

 

 

Looking for UAW related information or resources? Check out the flyer below to use as a reference sheet for ways to get connected!

Click  HERE for a printable copy.

 

 

Dear Brothers and Sisters:

You deserve to know the facts about recent outsourcing at Local 5960 Lake Orion and Local 1112 Lordstown. This was a decision agreed to by the involved local, regional, and national leadership. Everyone agrees that this situation sucks. But what would suck even more would be to have GM shut down any of our plants and devastate hundreds of our members’ lives and the communities where those plants exist. These are the facts.

• In 2017, GM’s car production was cut by over 20 percent, with the biggest impact to small cars.
• We saw the reduction of six shifts of assembly plant production and volume reductions at our Powertrain, Stamping and Components plants.
• There are currently nine open shifts of production in our assembly plants.
• GM is analyzing the future of many of their car products.

Due to these conditions, GM recently came to us to consider changes at the small car plants that would make them more competitive – which means keeping jobs in our plants. Due to GM’s track record in plant closings, we met with the Company to look at vehicle content, marketing, suppliers and labor.

For Lordstown, local leadership and management came to Detroit, and with the region and national parties, an agreement was negotiated to make changes that we believe will put the plant in a better position to stay open.

For Lake Orion – a location under the small car agreement negotiated during the bankruptcy – the national parties negotiated an Autonomous Vehicle Memorandum of Understanding last summer to build developmental vehicles for testing. That agreement was reviewed and signed off on by the local, regional and national parties. Earlier this year, that same AV MOU was used as a framework to negotiate a second AV MOU that would produce saleable autonomous vehicles on the same line as the current Bolt EV and Sonic. As with the first AV MOU, that second AV MOU was reviewed and signed off on by the local, regional and national parties.

Yes, the MOUs make changes that impact some jobs that our traditional members perform. But the local, region and International agreed that we needed to keep product in our plants. And in the case of Lake Orion, we needed to get future technology into a UAW GM plant – and we did.

GM would like to walk away from the UAW, shut down our plants and move work and future technology to cheaper locations outside the U.S. – which GM’s competitors are already doing. We pushed hard against the bigger changes GM wanted and entered into an agreement that we feel will result in the long-term job security of our members and communities.

We need a united membership to keep pushing back against GM, because when GM sees division, they exploit it. We fight this Company every day and I can promise you that we are going to keep fighting and share our work with you so that you have an accurate picture of what is going on in the run up to 2019 bargaining.

In solidarity,

Cindy

This week, over 75 new apprentice offers have been made in 17 UAW-GM Locals throughout the country.  The assignment of the new apprentices is consistent with agreements made during 2015 National Bargaining.  These newly indentured Apprenticeships will consist of 49 Electricians, 21 Diemakers and 9 Engineering apprentices and are made up of UAW-GM seniority employees, UAW-GM temporary employees and U.S. Military Veteran candidates.

As this new generation of skilled trades begins their journey, many changes and updates are being undertaken to ensure that their training experience solidifies their future. A new technical training suite and curriculum are being installed in the UAW-GM Center for Human Resources in Detroit. The technical suite will ensure that our tradepersons have the skills and abilities to launch and maintain the advanced manufacturing systems needed to build the highest quality cars and trucks.

Reminder:

There are members who still have unclaimed funds in their 2017 Dependent Care Account. If the participant has registered at http://www.wageworks.com, they will receive a reminder electronically regarding the important deadlines for incurring charges and filing reimbursement claims. Please note the April 30 deadlines below.

In Solidarity,
Cindy

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