GM workers head back to plants after crippling supplier strike
DETROIT, Michigan (AFP) — General Motors Corp. began calling workers back to some plants shuttered by a crippling strike at a key supplier on Monday but is not expected to get back to full production for at least a week.
The US automaker's production has been cut by more than 300,000 vehicles since the strike began February 26 at former GM subsidiary American Axle and Manufacturing Holdings Inc.
The first five weeks of the nearly three month-long strike cost the automaker 800 million dollars, GM said in securities filings. It has not released more recent cost estimates.
More than 30 plants in the United States, Canada and Mexico were affected by the strike and two other GM plants were shut down by local union strikes in what many analysts considered an attempt to pressure GM to step into the negotiations.
The United Auto Workers union reached a tentative agreement with American Axle late Friday and will be holding a key ratification vote on Thursday.
But since Monday is a federal holiday, it is unlikely that work will resume before Tuesday even if the vote passes.
"We have a restart plan. But that will be dependent on if and when the American Axle contract is ratified," GM spokesman Dan Flores told AFP. "Our start up is dependent on the availability of these parts."
The vote at American Axle is likely to be close because many strikers are angry over the terms of the agreement which required significant concessions.
Workers had said last week they were prepared to stay out all summer in order to get what they described as a fair contract.
"We made it through the hard part when it was 20 degrees out here, why shouldn't we stay out longer?" said one worker on the picket line.
The tentative agreement accepted by UAW negotiators features different pay rates at each of the company's plants. Wages would sink to as low as 10 dollars per hour for some jobs.
It also reduces the hourly wages of a production worker in Detroit from 28 to 18.50 dollars an hour. The company had originally proposed cutting wages to 14.50 dollars per hour.
As part of the transition to lower wages, qualified workers would get a wage "buydown" of up to 105,000 dollars over the next three years, according to a union summary.
Those who accepted early retirement would get buyouts of up to 140,000 dollars.
