American Axle Strike Head into Seventh Week; More GM Plants Threatened
April 14, 2008

The strike by United Auto Workers union employees against Detroit parts supplier  American Axle & Manufacturing Inc. is headed its seventh week with no end in sight, and it is threatening to close General Motors' assembly plants that produce some of the automakers most popular vehicles, including the 2008 Chevrolet Malibu.

In the latest development, the UAW rejected the company’s request to bring in a federal mediator to settle the strike.

In recent days, American Axle made a new contract offer to workers that union officials said was far different from what the union had presented to the company. The company’s offer included a two-tier wage structure that paid workers at its forging plants less than those at its axle plants. American Axle already has a two-tier wage structure that pays new workers less than veterans that was adopted in 2004.

American Axle has been asking workers for a wage cut to compete with other suppliers. That cut amounts to the current $27 an hour dropping to under $15 an hour in exchange for a lump sum cash payment.

Meantime, GM has reopened two of the roughly 30 plants that were closed or only partially running reportedly by buying the parts it needs from American Axle plants in Mexico. Still, the strike threatens to close other GM plants, which could run out of parts. A particularly worrisome possibility is that closure of plants that produce GM’s hot-selling Chevrolet Malibu and popular crossovers, the Buick Enclave, GMC Acadia, Saturn Outlook and the soon-to-be-introduced Chevrolet Traverse.

At the same time, workers at five GM plants officially put the automaker on strike notice over local issues regarding work rules and such. One of those five – a stamping plant in Parma, Ohio, -- has been settled.

Some experts believe those plant strike threats are to force GM, which so far has stayed out of the American Axle debacle, to get involved to settle the strike.

Photo by GM
Workers at GM's Orion, Mich., assembly celebrate the addition of the 2008 Chevrolet Malibu in November 2007.

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