Post by Dan Cummings - A midwinter drama is over. And there is reason for applause. Weeks of wondering and anxious anger have ended. Months of tense negotiations are a thing of the past. Years of waiting have now stopped for 2700 families. Members of the United Auto Workers Union at New Process Gear in DeWitt have overwhelmingly ratified a new contract with Magna Powertrain.
Those families who've depended on an NPG paycheck now know how much less their new hourly wage will be, if they stay and work at the plant. They also know the size of annual April paychecks called "Legacy Transition Bonus" payments...designed to soften the blow of the lower wage.
For the longtime Chrysler workers, they now have all the cards face up on the table, and can make a reasonable decision about the various other options open to them: early retirement, keep working at NPG as a Chrysler "flowback" employee awaiting relocation to another Chrysler plant, or take a one-time cash buyout to separate entirely from both Chrysler and Magna.
All those workers have been in the uneasy spotlight since early January, when Magna's threat to close the plant became public. The company was clear: we need to drastically lower wages or New Process Gear is history. UAW members, by their 76% approval of the new contract, made their position equally clear: they want the plant to stay open...even if hundreds of those workers who voted YES already knew before they cast a ballot that they won't be working there much longer. It's that kind of selfless consideration for the futures of others that brought the praise of Local 624 president Doug Havens, who said of those workers: "When voting, they not only considered their own livelihoods but the livelihoods of thousands of families across Central New York." You can read Havens' entire post-ratification statement elsewhere on our website, and I recommend it strongly.
Now, the curtain goes up on a new, and we hope long-running Act 2 for New Process Gear: a return to profitability and stability. The employees have done their part, and then some. They've paid with their emotions and a long period of uncertainty, coupled with admitted mis-management of their plant by Magna. They will also now pay in real dollar terms, as they adjust to something much less than Big 3 wages. Others will pay with an entire change of lifestyle and direction as they leave the factory, and we hope for them...that despite the anxiety of a major shift in living...that it's an exciting change for the better.
And that spotlight. It now bears down on Magna and the new promises made by this company...promises of new investment and a renewed pledge to earn back the trust of their workforce. It also shines on Albany and Washington, where state and federal lawmakers are being asked for tens of millions by Magna, to upgrade New Process Gear and pay for job training in the years to come. I'm told state policy-makers would release the requested money ONLY when Magna proves it has put its own money where its mouth is: The company has promised a 40 million dollar investment this year, and 55 million more in the next two years depending on how much profit the plant makes. The other thick string attached to Albany's requested dollars: job retention. NPG's owner says it will maintain an hourly and salaried union workforce of at least 1800 people, again depending on production matching business forecasts. We'll be watching.
