UAW Leaders Hit the Shop Floor To Lobby Workers on Chrysler Deal

Melvin Thompson, president of Local 140 in Warren, Mich., said, "I think we are going to pass it." (By Amy E. Powers -- Associated Press)

The clash over a controversial new labor contract at Chrysler has moved to the factory floor in suburban Michigan, where union officials fanned out this week trying to persuade their members to vote yes.

On the line, Aaron Devers, 47, who works at Sterling Heights Assembly, found himself buttonholed by one of the half-dozen committeemen from the United Auto Workers who were trying to win him over.

"They are saying it's a good contract and it's the best they can get," Devers said. "But everybody thinks it's a bad deal. People are afraid of it." The workers fear that the union is giving up too much without any commitment from Chrysler to keep plants open.

Chrysler and Ford are seeking some of the largest U.S. labor concessions in decades. General Motors workers approved a contract this month, with two-thirds of workers voting favorably. The Chrysler deal has faced opposition almost from the start. The ratification vote, underway at Chrysler union halls throughout the country this week, is expected to end early Saturday.

Like the GM deal, the Chrysler agreement includes an increase in health-care costs for workers and broad changes to union work rules that would create a class of plant workers paid as little as $14 or $15 an hour. Factory workers at Chrysler make about $28 per hour.

Union officials are telling workers that their current salaries and seniority are protected by the new contract, though new hires could be put into the lower-paid categories.

Fear runs deep among Chrysler workers, given the company's turbulent history, including brushes with financial disaster in the late 1970s, when the federal government stepped in with bailout loans, and takeover battles with Kirk Kerkorian, who was eventually fended off.

In the latest chapter, Chrysler was bought by the private-equity group Cerberus Capital Management earlier this year, ending a rocky nine-year pairing with Germany's Daimler-Benz.

"This company has had ups and downs. Its future is unpredictable," said Gerald Meyers, a former auto company chief executive and a management professor at the University of Michigan. "If there is any view, it's a downside view."

Meyers said the union workers don't trust Cerberus.

"The distrust is probably warranted," he said. "It's clear to me and clear to everybody that Cerberus is loaded. They can come up with whatever is necessary, and they don't need concessions."

Voting on the Chrysler contract appears to be at the halfway point, and the outcome remains unclear. The contract covers 45,000 workers at 59 facilities. Yesterday, both sides were awaiting results from Indiana plants. Workers at Local 685 and Local 1166 in Kokomo, Ind., which together have about 6,000 members, rejected the contract last night, according to a report from the Associated Press.