UAW Contract negotiations

The UAW has ratified an agreement with General Motors after going back to the Company to address issues raised by its skilled trade workers.

Ford and the UAW have ratified the richest agreement among the Detroit three automakers. The Ford deal includes a $10,000 total signing bonus – $8,500 plus $1,500 advance in profit sharing and $9 billion in U.S. plant investments. The Ford pact also would include $1,750 in additional annual bonuses and would provide pattern wage increases for veteran workers like the deal ratified by Fiat Chrysler workers and the agreement reached between GM and the UAW. GM’s contract has an $8,000 signing bonus for all workers and $2,000 for temporary workers. Fiat Chrysler’s signing bonus was up to $4,000 for veteran workers and $3,000 for entry-level workers. The Master Bargaining Committee for the Detroit 3 will be in Toronto to review the UAW agreement. A submission from the National union including our national financial team together with jim Stanford will give the committee a full breakdown of the UAW contract including any items not in the highlight package. We will share this with our members.

Pension Rep Retirement Reminders

Members that intend to retire should give notice at least 60 days ahead. So for example, those that wish to retire Feb.1 should see the pension rep by the end of November. Please note that the earliest a member may start the paperwork is 90 days ahead. Paperwork will get started when a member brings in birth certificates, SIN numbers, and a marriage certificate or a common-law affidavit to the pension rep. You do not have to decide which payment option you want at this point; that will be done later when pension paperwork comes in. Vacation Pay is paid out the week following retirement. Members can get the full amount of your vacation pay and PAAs if you have 1,000 hours in since July 1st. Check the bottom right hand side of your paystub under “Vac Year Hrs” to see your total. Members having less than 1,000 hours would get a percentage of vacation pay and PAAs. For example, if the member had 950 hours at retirement they would get 95% of vacation pay, and 95% of PAAs. If the member has 900 hours, the member would get 90% of vacation pay and 90% of PAAs. Anyone retiring in 2016, please note that there is no lump sum bonus scheduled for December of 2016, since the contract expires on September 20, 2016. The last scheduled lump sum bonus is December 2015. That will be paid on December 10th. GM can no longer allow members over 65 to take the Commuted Value option. This is due to changes in government regulations (Pensions Benefits Act) and has been in effect since November of 2014. There is information on the Commuted Value option on the Local 199 website; follow the link under the “Benefits” tab at the right side of the screen on the main page. GM has started using the new CPM2014 Mortality Table in October for calculating CV Values of members retiring. Basically, people are living longer, and the new table takes this into account. CV values will be approximately 3% higher for members retiring after November 1.

Special Payment

December special payment will be deposited on December 10, 2015. The payment is allocated to the week of November 30th. The Union would like to remind our members that as we have no trust that the Company won’t screw this up, try and avoid overtime for the weekend of December 4th & 5th.

Skilled Trades Report

The Union believes there is an immediate need to hire and the indicators to prove this claim are numerous. Force-ins have become a way of life and extensions of shift during the week are routine. We have even provided for 12-hour shifts on the weekend to minimize force-ins. All Trades people should know by now cross-training is well under way which was a demand from Trades Leadership to ensure the Company lived up to commitments spelled out in the COA . Many have already been to in-plant courses or have been assigned to “shadow” other Trades which is all part of raising level of ability. The training facility being developed in the basement has seen a steady flow of members receiving hands-on experience in basic job elements of other classifications work that is to be documented on SKILLS VERSATILITY CHARTS which are available for viewing in the training area. These charts offer a visual concept of where we are headed. The very need for cross-training and raising level of ability is due to the Company’s plan to operate with reduced numbers.

You have noticed there are others preforming our bargaining unit work. Contractors are repeatedly supplementing the business teams doing service work and calls to the leadership to report engineers working without GM trades occur daily. This has to stop. We believe that all of this is part of the company’s agenda to manage with fewer GM Skilled Trades. The leadership is seeking your support as the rate of attrition continues at a steady pace and we are obviously left with less people to perform any required trades work. The need for “New Blood” becomes more urgent each time someone retires and the opportunity to share their years of knowledge and experience with a new hire or apprentice is squandered. We are asking that every time you see an outside contractor working on production equipment while production is running or if you see an engineer working alone that you call for Union Representation to investigate. We ask that you actively and respectfully engage them to inquire what they are doing. This is very important as we head into bargaining next year so we can demonstrate the real deficiencies in the Skilled Trades numbers.

If you believe an Engineer or Contractor is performing your work, call for representation. It is time to strengthen our position and negotiate contract language to protect our work.

Layoff in HFV6 week Before Christmas

This will generate a SWW for the A1 status members. The New Hires with 90 working shifts will be paid for all the holidays over the Christmas break including both statutory and contractual.

The week prior to Christmas was deemed preferable as it lessened the impact on all our members losing an entire weeks pay.

To All General Motors Employees

We would like to inform all employees that if you possess any College technical trade related courses and or have any technical trade tickets that you submit them in the form of a resume to Geoffrey.maybee@gm.com

Issued by, Tim McKinnon, GM Unit Chairperson
On behalf of the Bargaining Committee
Brian Chemnitz, Doug Wark, Ron Allen, & Paul Dortono.
UNIFOR Local 199