Published: May 20, 2008 02:27 am            

LABOR: American Axle workers begin voting on new contract

STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

Striking workers at American Axle and Manufacturing Holdings Inc. began voting Monday on a new contract with the auto parts maker that would cut their pay by about one-third.

Picketing outside the Tonawanda plant, Pete Cloutier, a Town of Tonawanda resident and 14-year employee, said he thinks the contract will get a “yes” vote.

Amherst resident Chris Bogart agreed, adding that the Detroit and Three Rivers workers in Michigan, whose numbers total more than 3,000, will dictate how the vote goes; there are about 510 workers between the Tonawanda and Cheektowaga facilities.

“We’re at the mercy of Detroit,” said Bogart, who has also worked at the Tonawanda plant for 14 years. “They have the numbers. They have all the sway in how this is going to go.”

United Auto Workers’ negotiators and American Axle agreed on a deal late Friday shortly after GM agreed to kick in $200 million to help end a stalemate between the company and union.

The four-year agreement will close American Axle’s Tonawanda and Detroit forge operations. But the summary sheet says American Axle agreed to invest $170 million to $200 million in UAW-represented factories, and the company agreed to place some new business in the plants.

The deal cuts the hourly pay of a production worker in Detroit to $18.50 from $28. That’s an increase from the $17 per hour that American Axle had been offering.

A summary of the deal also said there will be buyouts of $85,000 for someone with less than 10 years with the company and $140,000 for a worker with more.

An offer of a $55,000 early retirement bonus also was included in the proposed contract.

Workers also would get a wage “buydown” of up to $105,000 paid over three years to help ease the transition to lower hourly pay. The size of the buydown would vary with the size of a worker’s pay reduction.

The deal features different pay rates at each of the company’s U.S. locations.

UAW members at the Detroit Forge plant and a factory in Three Rivers started casting ballots in the morning.

But the vote that could end the bitter 83-day strike won’t end until Thursday evening when Local 235 in Hamtramck, the largest local at the company, wraps up its balloting.

About 3,600 workers walked off their jobs Feb. 26 in the wage-and-benefit dispute.

The striking workers have picketed outside the plant gates at the Tonawanda plant in various weather conditions, but that’s not what has been the most difficult. “It’s really hard on the families,” Cloutier said of the strike.

        

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