#Union

Mixing business and emotion is dangerous, as some 2,000 workers in Oshawa, Canada are learning today. The GM plant they work at, which manufactures the Chevrolet Impala and runs a flex line for the Equinox, will axe 2,000 jobs.

Despite concerns within Jeep, Chrysler Group CEO Sergio Marchionne confirmed yesterday that the Wrangler will continue to be manufactured in Toledo, Ohio exclusively.

Local 551 of Chicago’s Ford Plant gave a resounding “no” to the new four-year labor contract. Local 551 represents about 6 percent of Ford’s United Auto Workers (UAW) employees and according to  secretary-treasurer Scott Houldieson of Local 551, the two-tier pay scale was one of the biggest reasons the plant’s workers voted against it.

Union employees working for Saab are growing impatient after the automaker said it could not pay wages to its workers because it had not yet obtained necessary short-term funding. The unions have threatened legal action that could end in bankruptcy for the automaker. The IF Metall and Unionen groups will send a formal demand for payment this Monday if their members have not received their unpaid wages. “Then the company has seven days to react,” IF Metall representative Veli-Pekka Saikkala told Reuters. “After that there are two alternatives. Either we see that the situation can be solved, or we demand that Saab is put into bankruptcy.”

Contrary to earlier reports, Mazda will not be ending production of its Mazda6 midsize sedan. Earlier reports suggested that the slow-selling model would be axed after reports emerged that production of the vehicle at Mazda’s Flat Rock, Michigan plant may cease.

General Motors will invest $2 billion across 17 plants, as the company retools existing plants to build new products and hire more workers. GM confirmed that their Toledo, Ohio plant would receive $250 million in improvements and create 250 new jobs.

General Motors is investing $131 million into their Bowling Green, Kentucky factory to help improve the legendary plant that produces the Chevrolet Corvette, but a new car won’t show up for another two model years.

UAW President Bob King said that the union may abandon their tactic of targeting one automaker during contract negotiations and negotiate with Chrysler, Ford and General Motors at the same time.

UAW chief Bob King slammed Ford CEO Alan Mulally’s $56.5 million stock package, claiming that “I don’t think any human being in the world deserves that much money.”

With Ford awarding more than $130 million in stock to its top executives, the UAW official in charge of Ford is optimistic that the company will also compensate union members who build the vehicles that Ford sells.

A Chrysler worker, claiming to have been fired after ending a relationship with the son of a United Auto Workers official, is now suing the UAW for sexual harassment, gender discrimination and retaliation. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit.

Even though Toyota saw its dealerships and other facilities picketed by UAW members in 2010, Honda is taking a tough stance on any interference by the United Auto Workers, with John Mendel, Honda‘s executive vice-president, dismissing them in a speech made on Tuesday.

The United Auto Workers continued its campaign of irrelevancy as its President, Bob King, launched a series of veiled threats at foreign automakers with American plants (such as the Honda plant seen above), while simultaneously stating that the very survival of the UAW is at stake – and the organization of a foreign automaker’s plant is the key to the UAW’s continued existence.

Stories of domestic auto workers showing up to work inebriated, and displaying reckless disregard for the integrity of their job are legion among a generation of consumers who swore off American cars in favor of imports. But that was the pre-internet era, where evidence was mostly anecdotal.

Now, The Truth About Cars, via Fox News, has a mountain of documented proof that UAW workers do, in fact, get drunk and stoned on the job. A Chrysler plant worker apparently tipped off a local Fox News affiliate that a bunch of workers were getting f!$&ed up on the job every single day for a period of ten days. On their lunch hour.

The video is pretty self-explanatory, and we want to make it clear that this is only a group of bad apples among a community of hard working Americans who are working hard to help turn Chrysler around. The problem is that the job security and culture of entitlement fostered by some elements allows for this situation to happen. With Chrysler owned by the taxpayers of America, and a slate of new products on the way that will ostensibly rescue the company, this is the last thing the beleaguered automaker needs.

[Source: The Truth About Cars]

A New York Times article reporting on Fiat’s push to “impose American-style standards” at an Alfa Romeo plant in Southern Italy, where workers workers will have to *gasp* work more hours and cut back on absences. One irate employee told the Times that“… too much work is going to kill our workers”, prompting nods of agreement from UAW management types across North America.