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Perspectives on UAW contract differ down the road

Chrysler workers in Belvidere return to work Monday after a two-week layoff designed to better align inventory with sluggish sales of the Dodge Caliber, Jeep Patriot and Jeep Compass.

And in short order, the 3,600 workers—many from the Rock County area—will vote on a national contract reached Oct. 10 by the United Auto Workers and Chrysler.

At least one person, and likely many more, will be voting no on the contract.

Tom Littlejohn, president of UAW Local 1268 in Belvidere, told reporters in Detroit that there’s broad opposition to the deal, in part because there’s no protection for Chrysler’s temporary workers like there was in the recently ratified UAW-General Motors contract. He’s not supporting the deal.

Under the Chrysler agreement, the 600 or so temporary workers at Belvidere won’t become permanent workers. In the UAW-GM deal, which was ratified in Janesville by 62 percent of those voting, the automaker agreed to permanently hire 2,800 temporary workers around the country.

And unlike the GM agreement, the Chrysler pact doesn’t promise a replacement for Belvidere when the Caliber, Compass and Patriot are discontinued.

The Janesville GM plant, on the other hand, has been told that it will build the next generation of GM’s full-size sport utility vehicles starting in 2013.

Typical of pattern bargaining, the Chrysler and GM contracts are similar in many ways. They’re different in others, and time will tell how two workforces just 40 miles apart view the similarities and differences.