So what could we bargain for at Dham if we reopen the local agreement?

 

What’s most important to remember is that if we bargain for a new local agreement, we can decide on our key demands together! It is standard in many locals for the membership to participate in a bargaining survey to help the bargaining team prioritize what to fight for, just as we did during the National Agreement.

Some ideas:

• Safe and predictable work hours - We’re simply asking for some work-life balance and flexibility, but there’s not one way to do this, and we can get creative! Some considerations: (1) Bringing on a third shift for the entire plant would still allow for OT, with ‘overs,’ ‘unders,’ and optional production Sundays; (2) If there’s not enough volume across the plant, some Mods can stay on two shifts and the Cadillac Mod(s) can go up to three; (3) If two Mods drop a shift or if one of the Mods goes offline, that allows for two other Mods to go up to three shifts right away without laying anyone off. It's just like when workers transfer between plants, but all happening within Dham.

• Rolling over temps - Adding a partial third shift also means temps will be rolled over. The contract allows management to have a certain percentage of temps and, at our plant, that's about 20%. If we added 1000 new workers to fill a partial third shift, about 800 new permanent workers would have to be added, meaning every current temp at Dham would get converted immediately. See the detailed calculation here: local22draft.org/bargaining-ideas

• Health and safety - We can address the unsafe work conditions, especially in the materials and RESS departments.

• Production standards - We can force management to provide Jobs Element Sheets (JES) for all jobs and follow standard training protocols. GM is violating its own policy (See Page 4 of the Local 22 Agreement on “Global Manufacturing System Guidelines”), which results in some workers being told to do multiple jobs at one time. 

• Parking lot safety - For many of us, driving in and out of the parking lot is the most dangerous part of our day. Whether it’s building new gates, establishing better flow patterns, or simply staggering shift times, we can build on the existing parking demands in the Local Agreement (11-026, 99-107, and 15-083) to improve parking lot safety.

• End non-UAW work - Jobs in the plant must be UAW, with our pay and protections, not done by Group Leads or contractors. Carving out these workers sows division and takes away jobs that could go to senior workers or those on restriction.