Detroit Free Press (Flint, US) - UAW leaders said Monday they hope the 150 new or retained jobs coming to General Motors' Flint pickup plant hint at possibilities in the upcoming labor contract negotiations, which kick off next week.
GM said Monday it will add or preserve about 150 jobs and spend $328 million at the factory, as it prepares for next-generation full-size pickups, expected in 2013.
The investment is part of the 4,000-job hiring blitz GM trumpeted in May in anticipation of continued growing demand for cars and trucks. GM has already announced the bulk of those jobs.
More jobs tops GM workers' priority list for the upcoming labor talks, said Joe Ashton, the UAW's lead negotiator for the GM contract. After years of concessions ahead of GM's bankruptcy, autoworkers say they are ready to benefit from GM's newfound profitability.
"The vast majority of workers want jobs, and they want job security," Ashton told reporters at the Flint factory.
Jim Shoup, who's worked almost 39 years at the Flint plant, agreed that job security is a high priority for workers, along with restoring lost benefits for retirees and getting workers' cost of labor adjustment back.
"Nobody's really looking for a pay increase," Shoup said.
The Flint factory has already benefited from the gradual recovery of the U.S. auto market. Next month, GM will start production on a third shift in Flint worth about 750 jobs, with the positions going to transfers and laid-off workers.
The city hopes to get more investment from GM out of this year's contract talks, along with the high-profile bid the union is making to reopen plants in Janesville, Wis., and Spring Hill, Tenn., and keep a factory in Shreveport, La., from closing. The Flint factory is still waiting for GM to green-light a plan to spend $417 million to build a new paint shop for the truck plant by June 2015, which would improve productivity and could require the plant to add a few more workers.
The Michigan Economic Growth Authority last month approved state tax credits for that proposal.
Any new jobs at GM factories first go to UAW members who are on layoff or who have rights to transfer back to a plant. Laid-off workers numbered about 1,300 at the end of June, but Ashton has said that number should dwindle to zero by September. Workers hired at that point would make a second-tier wage, which is roughly half of GM's standard $28-an-hour starting rate.
