Hello Lorrie,

I am usually an enthusiastic reader of your column, especially fond of your common sense views re. climate change and politics. Today however, I believe you wrote just another piece of the daily drivel media bias  coming from the bash GM bandwagon currently driving through a media outlet near you. Yes, I am an auto worker, currently working as a millwright (a skilled trade) in St. Catharines, ON and I am a daily Sun reader. I am so sick of hearing how it’s all GM’s fault, GM’s a dinosaur, looks good on those greedy GM workers. PLEASE!!!

I have worked at GM for 24 years, got hired as an apprentice (when was the last time you heard that in the auto industry, I am currently the youngest millwright at 43) and in 1984 we had 9500 people working in 4 plants in St. Kitts, and 36000 workers at GM of Canada. I thought I was set for life. Four years after I finished my apprenticeship GM in Detroit announce they were closing the Foundry where I worked, because of over capacity and declining market share. I’ve been working under a black cloud at GM ever since.

Since that day in 1992 we have had to change, not just the way GM operates but our union had to adapt to the reality that we must work with our employer to find solutions that enable us to compete against the world. We have had to change our work practices, and our union had to learn how to negotiate in a positive manner, and I am proud to say my union has been able to maintain employment for the majority of people we had working in 1992. But we now have 2200 people working in 2 plants in St. Kitts. That means 7300 people have had the opportunity to retire, but it also means when they retired their jobs disappeared.

 The CAW has worked with the company to transform the Foundry into a modern engine plant that currently makes 7 different V-8 engines on the same assembly line. We worked for 5 years removing a million tons of steel and equipment during the transformation, and with the new equipment came new work practices and responsibilities. The successful and speedy launch of this line enabled the union to present a business case to the company that helped to gain investment for a high feature v-6 line in 2000, when the gen 1 v-8 the original design from 1955 ceased. With this line came more changes to work practices, which really means less people doing more work but also means we are more productive workers. Right now, today this line has just been ramped up to 3 shifts making 1000 of these engines a day, starting nov.1. This is never mentioned in the paper.

St. Catharines has always had a reputation for high quality and being able to make things work more easily than other locations, which has enabled us to attract more investment in a 6 speed transmission line for our plant. We currently have no floor space so all or a portion of our v-8 line will have to be removed for this new work. Our union also had to open up our local agreement and negotiate a competitive operating agreement with the company that eliminates job classifications, thus eliminating jobs by combining them and also lets them exit business like construction. This is the job I do, removing and installing machinery. GM will now rely on contractor to do this work after 2014 or sooner, if they can find any.

This past spring our union responded proactively to the situation we are currently in by negotiating an early settlement with the company that included concessions.  I get no pay raise for three years which we rank and file members demanded of our union. WE ALL KNOW we make enough money. We also gave up one week  of vacation and some other benefits. When was the last time a teacher has done that.

So let’s correct some facts:

“ The head of the CAW says the union won’t make any concessions in return for a taxpayer-funded bailout”.

As I’ve pointed out above, we’ve already given concessions to the company that has made them more competitive. The fact is the foreign transplanted autoworkers who are non-union make the same wages we do, but since they don’t have retirees to pay for, their hourly rate is supposedly lower than ours (see attached e-mail “real cost of unionized workers”). Also our wages only account for 7% of the cost of a vehicle. So how much do you think we should make. Should we all make Walmart wages? Would that make you happy?

Also Our company is not asking for a handout. They are asking for a LOAN  because some large brains in the USA decided it would be wise to let the free market do whatever it wanted and apparently it wanted to run the price of oil up to the stratosphere, and loan money to anyone with a pulse, regardless of ability to pay it back. As a result our company no longer has access to the sources of credit it needs to operate. This also means people can’t get credit to buy cars. GM didn’t cause this crisis, but because of its financial needs it is the laughing stock of the media. How the mighty have fallen. Had it not been for this financial mess the changes that GM, the CAW and the UAW have made positioned GM to make tremendous gains in competitiveness and profitability.  But no one reports that.

It’s often mentioned that GM makes huge gas guzzlers which is of course true. ATTENTION : up until the price of gas went through the roof that is what Americans wanted to buy. Last week the Sun printed a letter from David Paterson, VP Corporate and Environmental Affairs listing all the other things GM makes yet this always gets panned over, so let’s refresh:

• More hybrid vehicles than any other company.

• First company in Canada to build hybrid and fuel cell vehicles.

• More R&D in Canada than the rest of the industry combined.

• Sells the most cars of any automaker in Canada.

• North American car of the year past 2 years

• Best new small car in Canada past 2 years

• Chevy Volt electric vehicle starting 2010.

• Will close 4 truck plants and increase production of small fuel efficient cars.

• Has made and continues to make cuts and changes that put us on track to reduce our global cost structure to among the most competitive in the industry by 2001 and beyond. 

Does this not say that  GM is trying to be competitive. So the decision to build trucks that people were buying until gas went through the roof negates all the other decisions that were made to make the company competitive according to the media. 

GM gets corporate welfare. Unfortunately this is now the price of doing business in North America. Governments are now competing with each other, particularly in the southern US to offer taxpayer dollars to auto companies to locate their plants and their jobs in their states. So if we refuse guess where the jobs go. Walmart does the same thing, fishing for tax dollars. Our PM has no choice but to play this game which was invented by the Japanese car companies. 

What bothers me most is nobody seems to be asking how our domestic  market in North America became so over run  buy foreign companies. Why have they been given free access to our market while we have not been given access to theirs. Sure now they build a few models here, but where are all the R&D jobs, engineering, high level management jobs. Well there not here. Who gets all the profit. It sure doesn’t stay here. Why did our leaders not get fair trade agreements with these countries that stated for every car they sold here they had to buy one from us, instead of allowing them to build auto plants on manmade islands where the cars drive right into ships bound for North America. You can call it protectionism if you want, but if we did not have the Auto Pact  with the big 3 in the 60’s there wouldn’t be an auto industry in Canada today. 

In Closing, Please give us a little more consideration. It’s not all doom and gloom. We are still working and making great products and would like to continue to work with our employer to compete with the world, but please don’t expect us to  live on $5 an hour like they do in Mexico or $5 a day like they do in China. We don’t ask that of our teachers, yet I rarely see a teacher driving a domestic built vehicle. Strange.

Also, please see attached letter by Rick Wagoner to the Wall Street Journal. Thanks.

Regards,

Edward Steers
Welland, ON