Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, August 28, 1993 TAG: 9308280087
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: HIGHLAND PARK, MICH. LENGTH: Medium
The offer, made two days before the union picks its target company to set the pattern contract for the auto industry, proposed numerous concessions by the UAW. It included worker contributions to their health benefits and a longer time for new workers to reach the wages and benefit levels of current workers.
"They said it was kind of a ground-floor approach, and I said it was more like a sub-basement approach," UAW Vice President Stan Marshall told reporters after receiving the offer. Marshall heads the union's 67,000-member Chrysler Department.
Without providing many specifics, Chrysler told the union it wants co-payments from workers on health insurance.
The union has said repeatedly it won't give up its company-paid coverage for workers and their families. UAW President Owen Bieber has said attempts to make health care coverage more expensive for workers could bring a strike.
Marshall panned Chrysler's offer as having little to work with toward reaching an agreement. But, he said, he still thinks Chrysler should be the union's bargaining target because it has the industry's hottest-selling lines of cars and trucks.
Lost business would add up quickly, especially with Chrysler's first new full-size pickup truck in 22 years hitting the market this fall.
The threat of a strike when the current contracts expire Sept. 14 is greater for the company chosen as the bargaining target. The UAW will announce its target on Monday.
Ford, which made its opening offer to the union Wednesday, also is seeking co-payments on health insurance and more time for new workers to reach full pay levels. But union officials have said there are several workable areas of that offer that could lead to an agreement.
In a break with tradition, GM decided against making an offer to the union before the target selection.
"We would always like to be in a position where we can address our specific issues, whether that's as the initial target or whether it's subsequent," said Tom Gallagher, Chrysler vice president of employee relations. "We're not reluctant to be the target."
The Canadian Auto Workers Union, whose Big Three contracts expire Sept. 27, is widely expected to choose Chrysler as its bargaining target.
While the two unions never have picked the same company in the same year, Marshall said that wouldn't necessarily be a deterrent to the UAW's going to the smallest of the Big Three first. Chrysler was last the UAW's target in 1973.
"If anything, it might be a plus for us because if there was a threat of a shutdown both places, that would even bring more power to bear," Marshall said. "It's not like it was last time around, when it was touch and go because . . . the cars weren't selling.
"Everything they've got is selling."
by CNB