GM Ties Up Loose Labor Strings With Moraine Action
March 11, 2008

By Bill Visnic

General Motors Corp. appears to have set the stage for shuttering its SUV assembly plant in Moraine, Ohio, by offering buyout packages to the 2,346 union-represented workers there.

The plant builds GM’s aging midsize SUVs, the Chevrolet TrailBlazer, GMC Envoy, Saab 9-7X and Isuzu Ascender — and it has long been thought GM plans to close the Moraine plant, near Dayton, as it moves to a new generation of more refined crossover vehicles built elsewhere.

But Moraine has been twisting in the wind, as workers at the plant were not covered by this summer’s sweeping new labor agreement between GM and the United Auto Workers union; workers in Moraine are represented by the International Union of Electrical Workers-Communication Workers of America. And it was believed the IUE was striving for commitment of a new product for the plant, as happened with many assembly plants under the new GM-UAW accord.

But the prospect for new product at Moraine now seems nil as GM this week presented the IUE with the same early-retirement and buyout packages it recently extended to UAW workers throughout its North American manufacturing operations.

“The special attrition program being offered hourly employees at Moraine is the same as the program currently being offered UAW-represented GM employees,” GM labor-relations spokesman Dan Flores told AutoObserver. He said as with the UAW offers, the IUE workers “are expected to exit the company by July 1, 2008.”

But a negotiations update on the IUE Web site dated March 4 indicated the IUE’s negotiating committee still is working on details of how the Voluntary Employment Benefit Association (VEBA), agreement with the UAW will be applied for the IUE constituency. The VEBA was a cornerstone component of the new GM-UAW contract that shifts future retiree benefits and health-care obligations — long paid for by the automakers — to a union-managed trust.

The IUE Web site said, “We are still awaiting word on the status of the unknown VEBA. The basis for a settlement hinges on these results.”

The Moraine site also now is a downstream casualty of the ongoing UAW strike at Detroit’s American Axle & Manufacturing. The American Axle strike — now in its second week — has halted production of GM’s medium-duty pickup trucks in Flint and Pontiac, Mich., which in turn has caused the Moraine-based DMAX Ltd. diesel-engine assembly plant to announce it will suspend operations beginning March 10.

Diesel engines such as the Duramax 6.6-liter V8 built at the DMAX facility are traditional profit-drivers for the medium-duty pickup business, with buyers paying hefty premiums for the optional Duramax engine. The DMAX facility will lay off about 1,000 workers beginning March 10, the Dayton Business Journal reported.

Photo by General Motors

2008 Chevrolet TrailBlazer

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