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Saturn to keep labor pact
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March 11, 1998: 6:17 p.m. ET
Two-thirds of employees vote to retain groundbreaking agreement
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - For the second time in less than 10 years, workers at General Motors Corp.'s Saturn auto manufacturing division have voted to keep their innovative labor pact.
More than 6,000 of the 7,200 eligible United Auto Workers members voted over two days at the division's plant in Spring Hill, Tenn. They decided to keep the labor agreement that has governed workers there since the facility opened in 1990 rather than going with the UAW's national contract.
"I am glad to tell you today that this membership reaffirmed its belief that this particular system, the partnership approach between General Motors and UAW [has been] reaffirmed by a 66 percent margin," said Joseph Rypkowski, the president of UAW Local 1853.
A similar vote in 1992 was reaffirmed by about a 70 percent margin.
Last month, 1,300 members of the union local voted to hold a referendum to decide whether to drop the current agreement and return to the national pact that governs the rest of GM's nearly 200,000 hourly workers in the United States.
Although Saturn workers earn an average of 12 percent less than employees covered under the national plan, they can increase their wages by meeting efficiency, training and other goals.
In past years, those bonuses have exceeded $10,000, but shrank to about $4,000 last year, when fewer cars were built.
Workers also are unhappy about having to rotate shifts, changes in attendance and injury policies, and seniority rankings that favor time spent at Saturn over total years with GM.
Long-time Saturn supporters have criticized GM for taking away Saturn's original autonomy and not investing to keep up the strong sales seen in the division's early days.
GM launched Saturn in 1985 under former Chairman Roger Smith. Saturn was Smith's effort to prove that a Big Three automaker could build a small car with union workers in the United States and still turn a profit.
Next spring, Saturn plans to answer criticism that it has been slow to broaden its car line. It will launch a new mid-sized sedan based on the European Opel Astra. The car maker also is expected to launch a sport utility vehicle in 2002.
-- Reuters contributed to this report.
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