The Strike Reason, the Strike Result: 932 GM Temp Workers Now Permanent

Written by William Bryant Rozier

In October 2019, UAW Local 2209 Chairman Rich LeTourneau cast the last local vote, one minute before the deadline, to decide whether 48,000 General Motors (GM) workers nationwide, including 4,500 from the Roanoke, IN plant, would end their 40-day strike. Reportedly, the work stoppage cost GM nearly $2 billion in lost production and employees nearly $1 billion in lost wages.

Reportedly, GM’s fourth-quarter sales slump after the strike left its inventory in short supply.
But a crucial and steadfast position by the international labor union, the reason why the strike began, finally passed. On January 6, 2020, 932 GM temporary workers were converted to permanent workers.
The decision to end the longest auto workers’ strike in 50 years came down to decimals points locally: 50.8% workers said yes to the agreement, a four-year contract with benefits that included pay raises, factory investments, and a path for temporary workers to become permanent employees after three years on the job. LeTourneau, voting his conscience, voted no.

His complaints were with the obvious loopholes, he said. By November 2019, when he was interviewed for this article, those loopholes became fully realized arguments and disagreements over a “ton of discrepancies,” he said, about the language in the contract, one “that favors [the company’s] needs over ours.”

He continued. “There are lots of stuff in relation to wages that nobody can explain, like some of the wage scales for people with lower time in the plant that are making more than the people who’ve been here longer.” And the language with respect to temporary workers, about when they would be considered permanent employees, that LeTourneau was adamant from the beginning would be a nonstarter.

“I made it very clear, we go by the temp hire date [here], period,” he said. “When they arbitrarily move you in and out of classifications [like from temporary to flex shift schedule] is irrelevant to me and to my language locally. We hire by temp date.”

“And their intent, what [GM] stood strong on with the international union, was to create a path to permanent employment,” said UAW 2209 President Holli Murphy, also interviewed in November. “So if they’re switching them around, that takes away from the intent.”

Flex shift employees work Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays for no more than 32 hours a week. While permanent/temporary employees work Monday through Saturday. Temp workers can bounce into flex shift employees. GM’s contention was for a worker’s 3.5 years, the date that he or she could become permanent, to start at those arbitrary dates. That’s discrepancy. And that language gap is prevalent at the other union halls, according to LeTourneau and Murphy.

LeTourneau, with just over 32 years of experience with labor negotiations, believes the talks could’ve been handled differently; he cited the fact that negotiations did not start immediately after the strike began. GM’s last, best, and final offer, usually provided earlier in the collective bargaining, was issued on Day 39 of the strike.

The Roanoke plant does have leverage when it comes to talks with Detroit: It’s the #1 plant in North America in terms of volume and profits. A Texas plant “makes more profit on their vehicles per [truck], but our volume surpasses that number,” LeTourneau said, “because we build more than they do per hour. Not everybody has that leverage.”

The truck division controls the market, according to union chairman. And UAW’s workers have won the plant a JD Power Gold Award; Roanoke, competing against high-end car makers like Mercedes and BMW, is the first GM plant to ever take home the top prize.
The devil is in the details because quality is king.