DETROIT — The UAW's lawsuit against General Motors over the shutdown of plants in Ohio, Michigan and Maryland would be dropped if workers approve a proposed labor contract with the automaker.
The tentative agreement reached between GM and the union last week says the case will be permanently dismissed and the matter would be eligible for arbitration instead.
UAW members who transferred from an affected plant to avoid being laid off could benefit under arbitration, and employees who lost wages during the transfer could be made whole, according to the proposed agreement.
GM, in its 2015 contract with the UAW, agreed to refrain from closing or idling plants. The union argued that GM violated that agreement by "unallocating" products from the Lordstown Complex in Ohio, Baltimore Operations in Maryland and Warren Transmission in Michigan. The plants officially remained on active status even after production stopped earlier this year.
If UAW members ratify the labor deal, those plants, as well as a parts warehouse in Fontana, Calif., would be designated as closed. The Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant was scheduled to close in January, but under the proposed contract, it would get a $3 billion investment to stay open and build electric trucks, vans and battery modules.
A UAW spokesman declined to comment Wednesday. GM did not respond to a request for comment.
The union's lawsuit against GM, filed in February, says that there is no material difference between unallocating a plant and idling or closing a plant. By unallocating product to Lordstown, Baltimore and Warren, GM violated the contract, the UAW claimed.
Under the contract, the automaker cannot "close, idle, nor partially or wholly sell, spin-off, split-off, consolidate or otherwise dispose of in any form, any plant, asset, or business unit of any type, beyond those which have already been identified." The stipulation made exceptions for certain conditions, such as a market-related volume decline or an act of God.
GM, in a court filing, said it did not violate the agreement, known as Document 13, saying the contract gave it exclusive responsibility of "the products to be manufactured, the location of the plants, the schedules of production, the methods, processes and means of manufacturing."
Voting on the tentative deal began last weekend and is expected to finish by Friday afternoon. More than 46,000 UAW members have been on strike against GM for more than a month. The plant closures GM announced in November 2018 were one of the biggest issues going into negotiations on a new four-year contract.
from Section Page News - Automotive News https://ift.tt/2obd0ZL via Falls Church auto repair
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