COLUMBIA, Tenn. — The United Auto Workers union has settled a strike against Johnson Controls Inc. over representation for the company's 175 local workers, and the employees are back on the job — with significant raises — UAW officials said Tuesday.
The Johnson Controls facility, in the Maury County Industrial Park, makes seats and interior consoles for the General Motors Corp. plant in nearby Spring Hill. The strike had threatened to delay the startup of production of the new Chevrolet Traverse crossover utility vehicle, scheduled for Sept. 2.
The strike, which began July 16 and lasted eight days, was called after Johnson Controls declined to recognize the UAW as the bargaining agent for the workers, even though more than 90 percent had signed union cards, said Michael J. O'Rourke, president of UAW Local 1853 in Spring Hill, which also represents hourly workers at the GM plant.
Union and company negotiators will sit down to begin working on a full contract for the workers "within the next two weeks," O'Rourke said.
Employees returned to work after the company agreed to recognize the union as the sole bargaining agent for the workers, and a wage agreement was signed, said Mike Herron, Local 1853 chairman.
The wage agreement, which will be in effect for the next three years, raises pay immediately to $13 an hour from the $10 and $11 the workers were getting, Herron said. Over the three years, the wages will rise to as much as $16 an hour depending on job classification, he added.
Among issues still to be addressed are working conditions and benefits, including health care, he said. Workers have been paying $60 a week for their health insurance, but the union will work to "get them some help on that," Herron said.
Johnson Controls plant manager Robert Stecker said he had "no comment" about the dispute or settlement, and company spokeswoman Debra Lacey said: "It's our policy that we don't comment on labor relations."
GM officials said earlier that the strike hadn't affected Traverse production, because the assembly line is not in operation. Although the Johnson Controls workers were on the job when they walked out, they were still in training and not yet building sellable parts for GM, the union said.
'Full steam ahead'As for Traverse production, "It's full steam ahead on Sept. 2" at the Spring Hill plant, O'Rourke said.
The GM plant reopened to begin training workers in March, and most of the 2,400 employees who were laid off in April 2007, when production of Saturn vehicles was discontinued, have been called back.
But the strike at Johnson Controls, had it continued much longer, could have delayed the Traverse startup, Herron said. That's because even if Johnson Controls had begun building seats and consoles with nonunion labor, the UAW would not have allowed those parts to be installed in the vehicles, he said.
"We had informed General Motors that the Traverse would be built only with UAW seats and consoles," he said.
O'Rourke said Spring Hill workers are "upbeat" over prospects for the Traverse, even though auto sales are down significantly this year and demand for GM's large crossover vehicles has weakened over the past two months.
Generally, though, the large crossovers have been a bright spot in GM's lineup even as sales of large pickups and traditional sport utility vehicles have fallen significantly this year in response to higher gasoline prices and the economic downturn.
"All we can do is keep our fingers crossed and hope the economy takes a turn for the better," O'Rourke said. GM has severely curtailed production of trucks and SUVs but has kept its car and large-crossover assembly lines running at or near capacity.
The three large GM crossovers already on sale are the GMC Acadia, Buick Enclave and Saturn Outlook. All are built on the same architecture as the Traverse, which goes on sale in October.
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