Flint Truck Assembly Plant's battle reflects industry, societial struggles
by Flint Journal Editorial Board
February 21, 2009
The Detroit Three automakers' survival plan, as hashed out with the UAW last week, greatly mirrors concessions being asked locally of General Motors' Flint Truck Assembly Plant. The plight of U.S. manufacturing is so fragile that survival is not just the driving issue, but the only issue, and Truck Assembly is very much caught up in that crisis.
It almost goes without saying that the plant's employees must give more than 100 percent effort, as surely they know better than anyone. But even with that, workers are asked to accept job cuts and work rule changes as UAW Local 598 negotiates a contract per GM's demand to make the plant more competitive.
Yet, details of the plan the Detroit companies turned in to President Barack Obama last week do not sound as draconian as might have been expected, especially if they result in federal loans that spare auto companies from bankruptcies.
It appears base pay is to remain intact for the union workers, but with less overtime, new work rules presumably designed to enhance productivity, cuts in lump-sum cash bonuses and the elimination of cost-of-living pay raises -- all of that to reduce the companies' legendary labor costs. That goal would be furthered by cutting 50,000 more jobs worldwide -- 20,000 of them in the United States. Laid-off workers stand to receive less supplemental pay while they collect unemployment.
The fate of Truck Assembly, huge as it looms for the Flint area, is really a microcosm of a crisis of unimaginable proportions that in a worst-case scenario could flatten the economy for many years and rule out auto purchases for most would-be buyers. Whatever happens at Truck Assembly is apt to be a harbinger of the industry as a whole.
FULL Editorial