- Union officials demand GM transition part-time temps into full-time positions to prevent layoffs.
- Around 95 of the 250 part-time temps at Fort Wayne have been in roles for 18 months.
- UAW leaders claim GM is delaying the promotion of part-time temps to avoid hiring them.
Hundreds of part-time temporary employees at two GM plants in the US will lose their jobs in the coming days if the UAW refuses to keep them as part-time temporary workers and attempts to make them full-time temporary or permanent employees.
The vast majority of them are stationed at Fort Wayne Assembly in Indiana where the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra are built. This site employs roughly 4,000 people across three shifts, and of these employees, approximately 250 are part-time temporary workers. The remaining part-time temporary workers losing their jobs are at the Bowling Green site, which produces the Chevrolet Corvette and employs 1,458 people.
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According to shop chairman of UAW Local 2209 at the Fort Wayne site, Rich LeTourneau, he will not sign letters agreeing to keep these workers as part-time temps and believes GM should promote them to full-time temporary and full-time permanent openings available at the facility. Speaking with Detroit Free Press, LeTourneau said GM wants to string them along in their current roles for as long as possible.
“The only way they are hireable (per the UAW contract) is if they become full-time temps for nine consecutive months,” he said. “This company is never going to hire them, so if they’re not going to hire them, I’m not going to prolong their agony.”
UAW Local 2164 chairman Jason Watson from the Bowling Green factory echoed these statements, saying “as a union, we’re not going to allow you to string these people along as part-time when you can make them full-time.”
Of the 250 part-time temps at Fort Wayne, 95 have been in their current positions for 18 months, while the rest were hired to fill in for vacations. He believes that if GM doesn’t want to transition all of the workers to full-time positions, it should at least “hire the 95,” noting “we have open full-time jobs in that plant.”
“The company and UAW have been unable to reach an agreement for extending part-time temporary team members at Fort Wayne Assembly,” GM spokeswoman Tara Kuhnen added. “According to the provisions of our National UAW-GM contract, without an agreement, we will be required to release about 250 temporary employees by September 30, 2024.”
