TRUCKS FACE END OF ROAD
Chrysler plans to cut transport fleet operations
The union representing workers at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ Windsor Assembly Plant says it will fight the company’s plans to outsource its trucking division.
“This is Day 2 of a six-month process,” Dino Chiodo, president of Unifor Local 444, said Friday. “Just because they’ve given us notice doesn’t mean it’s gone.”
The company notified the union Thursday it plans to outsource the work of transporting auto parts, Chiodo said. The union has 30 days to respond, he explained.
The move does not involve haulers of assembled cars.
Almost 300 workers — 288 hourly and seven salaried — work in the transportation division, said LouAnn Gosselin, FCA spokeswoman. Chiodo said most FCA drivers make a little more than $35 per hour while outside contractors pay their drivers as little as $15 per hour with no benefits.
“We think these jobs are worth fighting for,” Chiodo said. He said the loss of good-paying jobs will have an effect on the local economy.
Gosselin said the company hopes to have the work outsourced to other unionized carriers by the end of the year. “We don’t anticipate any job losses,” she said, explaining the company will offer retirement incentive packages throughout the plant. Workers from the transportation division who don’t take packages will be offered jobs inside the plant.
The union ratified a new collective agreement in October. Since then, 158 employees have or are set to retire. Some of those workers may have elected to take a package had they known it would become available, Chiodo said.
Chiodo said FCA might decide managing outside contractors is more trouble than it’s worth. Some may only bid on local drives, some may only want routes that require highway driving.
The logistics may prove too daunting, Chiodo said. “What if they can’t provide you the product in time to keep the line operating?”
Chiodo said the company has raised the spectre of outsourcing in the past.
“They’ve been talking about transportation for 20 years,” he said. The company has never followed through, he figures, because of “outstanding concerns.”
Chiodo said the company should have raised the spectre of the outsourcing during the contract negotiations last year. He said 158 workers have since retired and may now be angry to learn incentive packages are being offered.
Under the collective agreement, the company can contract out union jobs, Chiodo explained. But it must give the union six months’ notice and consider any suggestions the union has to mitigate the outsourcing.
“Potentially, this is what they’re doing. It’s not for sure.”
Chiodo conceded that FCA is an outlier in the auto industry. Neither Ford, General Motors nor Toyota have their own trucks or drivers.
This is Day 2 of a six-month process. Just because they’ve given us notice doesn’t mean it’s gone.