BY JOHN SARGE AND JEAN LUC DUVAL
FLINT, Michigan - United Auto Workers (UAW) members voted July 29 to approve an agreement with General Motors (GM) to settle two local strikes here. Workers at GM's Flint Metal Fabrication Center voted by a 90 percent majority to accept the deal, while across town workers at the Delphi East Plant reportedly approved it with 76 percent in favor.

"The showdown was deferred, not resolved," read one headline in the Detroit Free Press. Since 1995 the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News have waged an attack on the unions there.

The strike lasted 54 days at the Metal Fabrication Center and 48 days at Delphi East, idling nearly 200,000 workers and costing the company more than $2 billion in lost production. But the settlement leaves the central issue in the fight - GM's drive to slash its payroll and impose major productivity increases - unresolved. The Wall Street Journal article reporting the tentative agreement pointed out that the company remains "determined to make GM's manufacturing leaner and more competitive, ultimately employing 50,000 fewer hourly workers than today."

"It wouldn't be too strong to call it [the settlement] a disaster," Burnham Securities analyst David Healy told the press. "The aim would be for GM to get its costs down to levels competitive with Ford and Chrysler, whether you count it as hours per car or stamping hits per worker. I can't find anything worth $2.2 billion that GM got out of the strike."

"It's a good agreement," explained Floyd Richardson of UAW Local 659 as he left the hastily called meeting of his local union July 29. Strikers received the four-page summary of the agreement as they entered the meeting and were asked to vote on it before they left. Richardson, a repairman in the welding department with 33 years seniority at the Metal Fabrication Center, continued, "I'm at retirement age, but it's beneficial for the guys coming after me. It is the best agreement in a long time, if the company lives up to it."

Across town at the meeting of Local 651, with 5,800 members, union members had sharply differing views on the outcome. "I'm happy to be going back to work. The strike was a real hardship," said David Finch, a worker with 20 years at GM. He pointed out, "Now we have 14 more months to prepare," referring to when the national agreement between the union and the company expires.

Dave Elkins, a job setter with 26 years at the car maker, argued, "Nothing's settled. We're basically making the company stand by the last contract!"

The agreement was announced at a press conference in the late afternoon. It was reached after four days of intense negotiations and after GM returned 18 flat-bed truckloads of die parts that the auto giant had secretly removed over the Memorial Day weekend shutdown. It includes promises by GM to complete the originally planned $300 million investment in new equipment for the Metal Center.

The bosses also agreed to withdraw their federal lawsuit against the union, and their grievance charging that the strikes were illegal under the national union contract. The issue of the strikes' legality had just completed four days of hearings before a mediator. Under the contract signed between the union and company in 1996, UAW members can only strike over local issues such as safety, production standards, and outsourcing. The union pointed to local issues as the cause of the strikes, while the bosses claimed that their investment policy was the real reason for the walkouts. The company had hoped to block future strike action by the union.

The bosses promised not to sell the Delphi East plant or two Delphi brake plants in Dayton, Ohio, before January 1, 2000. The company will also pay 70,000 laid off or striking workers in the United States the five days of holiday pay lost over the first week of the shutdown in early July. This $44.8 million will come from joint training funds to which the UAW and GM contribute. The union leaders and the bosses announced that they would work out new ways of communicating to avoid strikes in the future.

The UAW officials agreed to settle outstanding issues that have led to strike authorization votes at the two Dayton factories as well as at the Buick City Complex across town in Flint and at a Metal Fabrication Center in Indianapolis, Indiana. The officials agreed to a no-strike pledge in Dayton for the duration of the present labor contract, but not at Buick City and Indianapolis. The agreement does not settle issues that have led to strike authorization votes at the auto maker's Saturn assembly factory in Spring Hills, Tennessee, its sport utility plant in Janesville, Wisconsin, and its Bowling Green, Kentucky, Corvette factory. The last plant is the only location in GM's U.S. operations without a local contract.

The agreement at the Metal Fabrication Center includes some productivity concessions by the union. In return for the promised investment, workers in the welding department are required, under threat of unspecified penalties, to increase production by about 15 percent by March 1, 1999. Many workers leaving the meeting didn't see this as a major increase. Tim, a welder in the plant for the last three years who asked that his last name not be used, pointed out, "These are the same numbers we told them [plant management] we could give them in January." The company attacked the union during the strike for upholding so-called pegged rates, which allow a worker to weld a set number of parts per shift, and then stop. The auto giant agreed that this system would stay in place, but with the increased production numbers.

Aza Hinkle, a quality technician with 25 years at the Metal Center who spent almost eight years welding, said GM "wanted the welders to work like they use to force us to work, 55 minutes out of every hour. But the work is strenuous and hot. The welders will be able to get the new rate, but the company will want to raise the rate again." One thing the strike proves, she said, was that "the young people coming in will not tolerate being treated like we were."

As part of settling outstanding grievances Brian Lehr, a fork lift operator, said, "I get a $.13 an hour raise." Lehr came to the union meeting carrying his picket sign. "I brought this along because I've gotten use to it and if we hadn't gotten what we wanted I could have carried it a little longer," he explained.

The work stoppages, which began in early June, had led to the auto giant shutting down much of its widespread North American assembly and parts operation. At its height, the bosses had laid off 193,000 GM workers in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, blaming the strikers. Some analysts put the cost of the shutdown to the auto barons at $2.2 billion and the production of 567,000 vehicles. Ward's Automotive Reports, an industry newsletter, estimates that non-GM auto parts suppliers have lost between $220 million and $1.1 billion. It could take a week or more for the company to get all its assembly plants back into production, even thought it was running radio announcements for workers at some factories in the Detroit area to report to work before the votes were counted in Flint.

Initial reactions from Wall Street were unfavorable to the agreement. Capitalist investors had hoped that GM could defeat the workers and drive through with its plan to slash 50,000 jobs and increase productivity levels to those of its main competitors.

Workers also understand that the almost eight weeks on the picket line settled little. "It's a little hard to be too excited," explained Kendall Martin, a Metal Center worker with 27 years seniority. "I don't think I'll relax until next year, when we've got a national agreement." He captured a widely held opinion "We're going to have to be back out here, and next time GM is going to be more prepared."

Jean Luc Duval is a member of UAW Local 235 and John Sarge is a member of UAW Local 900, in the Detroit area. Holly Harkness contributed to this article.  
 
 
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