UAW To Picket General Motors' Orion Township Plant
UAW members are scheduled to picket outside General Motors’ Orion Township Plant today, where the Chevrolet Sonic and Buick Verano are built. Negotiations have stalled between the union and an in-house supplier owned by the Ambassador Bridge’s Moroun family.
According to Pat Sweeney, president of Orion’s UAW Local 5960, current LINC Logistics employees make $9 an hour working at the GM plant and lack health care benefits. The workers have been in the process of negotiating for months for their first contract, but last month an agreement was turned down because its proposed raises were offset by a high health care premium.
The LINC workers have unanimously voted back in June to strike if UAW leaders call for a walkout, though the union is still contemplating that decision. The union is working hard in getting both LINC and GM to be more generous, ultimately seeking fair wage and fair benefits.
GM is not involved in the negotiations but continue to monitor the situation. The Orion Township plant has always emphasized low costs since there is such little profit margins on the small cars being produced. Chevy’s Sonic is actually the only car of its size to be built in the United States; its competitors, such as Ford‘s Fiesta, turn to production in Mexico.
[Source: Detroit Free Press]
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