itsmeuaw

IUAW DO YOUR JOB AND STOP WHORING MONEY FROM UAW WORKERS!!

Mr. Bob King Vice President and Director UAW, National Ford Department 8000 East Jefferson Avenue Detroit, Michigan 48214 Dear Mr. King: Subject: Equality of Sacrifice During 2007 negotiations the parties had numerous discussions pertaining to the principle of "Equality of Sacrifice" and the Company's management principle of "One Company, One Plan". The Union also expressed concern that the salaried workforce contribute equally to those wage and benefit adjustments necessary to achieve growth and job security. The Company is committed to both of these principles and recognized that all employees should share in the contributions necessary during this difficult period. While the company does not negotiate the wages and benefits for non-represented employees, it has assured the Union that sacrifices by the UAW-represented employees are reflected in the pay and benefit practices of all non-represented employees. Very truly yours, BILL DIRKSEN, Executive Director U.S. Labor Affairs Concur: Bob King

IUAW rep. is trying to say we pass a good contract:Hysterical or someone trying to get pull up to IUAW Vatican!(pope)

Sorry Chicago, the people here in Sharonville, Oh are scared to death. The Union here is scaring everyone with strike and possibly losing jobs to replacement workers. We're on a downward spiral. Most people here think we make too much already and the public will not look at us favorably. I am definitely voting no and am proud of Chicago's solidarity. Well that is exactly what the Iuaw wanted. Our leadership UAW here got chewed out by international for not scaring us. That just shows how poorly our local communicates with its members. We're all afraid of a strike, I know I can't afford it. An... We're all afraid of a strike, And compared to what the CEO makes and in these times where CEOs are under scrutiny for making millions while their workers rub nickels and occupy wall street this was a perfect time to re negotiate. I just wish the rest of us seen the opportunity. We understand your fears. Thanks for the support!Will Bob King step down after this accomplishment? I wonder,, what was in it for him personally. Corruption at its best. Scare your own members into voting against themselves instead of backing us. What does it take to flip a union member? Greed? Anybody know where this guy came from?

Any News,Local reps shold we should hear sometning by Nov 22,2011

NO parity with General Motors or Ford. We get $1750 upon ratification. The other $1750, only “when the company achieves financial stability,”is misrepresented as a ratification bonus—we might not get it at all. We get only $500 a year “inflation protection” which is less than the $600 Christmas bonus we lost in 2009. We might get another $500 for quality, but “no award will be paid if Chrysler Group LLC determines that targets were not met.” An “audit score adjustment factor” would give workers in some plants up to $1000, but only if they achieve a bronze or higher WCM score (not likely in the next four years). Profit sharing? Chrysler can make up to $1.25 billion in operating profits—a long shot considering the company claims to have “lost” $254 million in the first half of 2011—before we get a cent. In other words all but $3750 depends on “metrics” that we have no say in and minimal control over. NO repayment of past losses! $3750 does not begin to compensate us for the concessions of 2009—“suspensions” of raises, bonuses, holidays and more that were supposed to be temporary—that cost eachworker a minimum of $9000. Bonuses that average less than $1000 per year do not make up for the thousandsof dollars we will have lost at the end of our Chrysler career if we allow the “suspensions” to be transformed into permanent losses. NO end to two-tier pay. Raises for “entry level” workers—UAW sisters and brothers like everyone else—leave them at least a $9 an hour behind “traditional” employees and their pay can still barely support a family. There are no commitments to make Temporary Part Time workers permanent. TPTs and Summer Vacation Replacements do not count towards the 25% cap on “entry level,” which does not even go into effect until 2015. Even if some entry level workers are moved into the “traditional” pay bracket they will not get traditional benefits. All these tiers lower wages for everyone in the long run and keep us all “divided and conquered.” NO COLA or improvement factor raises—“traditional” pay is frozen for another four years. We have not had a raise since 2006. Are we paying the same for food, gas and utilities as we did in 2006? Time-and-ahalf only after 40 hours. NO guarantees that there will be 2100 new jobs; any new jobs will be 100 per cent second tier. New jobs will be offset by reduction of jobs in skilled trades. Language that made the company fill attritional openings has been deleted. A new loophole—“market related volume declines” has been added to the toothless moratorium on plant closings and spinoffs. The UAW workforce at Chrysler could be even less than 26,000 by 2015. NO end to forced transfers of workers on indefinite layoff—without “closed plant” status they still lose their seniority. Laid off workers run out of SUB after 26-52 weeks. The job bank is gone. NO let up in the decimation of skilled trades. The company will continue cutting skilled trades to the bone through outsourcing, combining and eliminating classifications (“rationalization”), and dumping more trades work on production through Autonomous Maintenance. Lines of demarcation will be a thing of the past. Two thirds of all skilled positions could be eliminated at Chrysler, Ford and GM if they follow the pattern of GM’s totally restructured Lake Orion assembly plant. NO lost holidays returned. We did not get back Easter Monday and lost the “floating holiday” (the one Friday before Labor Day that was in the last contract) and July 5, 2013 (the Friday after Thursday, July 4, which we would have off with pay in previous contracts). NO restoration of relief time cut in 2009, which amounts to roughly 25 hours per year. Six to eight minutes per day now cut for Alternative Work Schedule/Flexible Operating Pattern workers. NO $700 Christmas bonus for retirees and pensions are frozen for four years. NO bereavement for same-sex partners. NO change to the inhumane combined attendance and tardiness procedure. One occurrence removed now, and then 4 more years under the gun. NO end to AWS and FOP, with some crews having their regularly scheduled 10-12 hour days on weekends for straight time. Dundee and Trenton only won—after Dundee voted to strike—relief from changing shifts from week to week. The company can impose AWS or FOP on a plant without local union approval. NO fairness in overtime: “the Local Unions and local plant managements may negotiate local agreements for the purposes of equalizing team based”—not by rotation or seniority anymore—“overtime hours or overtime opportunities in the same department and classification and on the same shift.” AND NO, Fiat-Chrysler is not broke. Cash reserves of Fiat and Chrysler have been combined and the company is sitting on a pot worth $27 billion. Car sales are up and market share has increased. Chrysler’s hourly labor costs are $7-9 less than Ford, GM and Toyota. The Treasury loans have been paid in full ahead of schedule, drastically lowering lending rates. And they did not “lose” $254 million. When the bosses borrowed money to pay off the Treasury there were servicing fees. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and their cohorts got half billion bucks. We got a button! We are forfeiting everything we thought we could get back if we vote yes. Many of us are understandably worried about what we could lose if we vote no and the contract goes to arbitration. There is no predicting how the arbitrator would rule or how long it would take. We are on unchartered waters. We don’t know what might weigh in on the ruling. There are the GM and Ford patterns, and there’s Fiat's 27-billion-dollar cash reserve, but Chrysler claims by itself it has only $10 billion. An anti-union arbitrator might try to squeeze more givebacks. The “Occupy Wall St.” protests in New York and hundreds of other cities have put the spotlight on corporate greed. One way we can protest corporate greed is by voting NO on this contract. We would be acting in a proud and dignified manner in the tradition of the sit-downs of the 1930s. We would be showing Marchionne that we reject his “culture of poverty” and will not be blackmailed by scare tactics. Whatever the vote, we rank-and-file members have to come together. We can’t let tiers keep us divided. We need to find a way to revive the fighting tradition of the UAW.

Sorry meant Chicago assbly Plant,here why I said that,Autoworkers Caravan, a group that represents UAW activists, said today that a group of skilled-trade workers have appealed the ratification of Chrysler’s four-year labor contracts The appeal was signed by 227 skilled-trades workers and filed with the UAW’s International Executive Board. A UAW spokeswoman could not be reached immediately for comment. Some of Chrysler’s skilled-trades workers are upset because the executive board declared on Oct. 26 that the contract had been ratified even though a majority of skilled-trades workers voted against it. Under the UAW’s constitution, skilled-trades workers can reject a contract if they vote against it for reasons that pertain to skilled-trades issues. The UAW's board ruled Oct. 26 that the skilled-trades workers voted against the contract because they disagreed with the general economic terms of the agreement. Because of that decision, the board declared that the contract had been ratified because 54.8% of all hourly workers — both production and skilled trades workers — had voted in favor of the deal. About 5,000 of Chrysler’s 23,000 hourly UAW workers are skilled trades while the rest are production workers. The appeal filed by the skilled-trades workers “asks for documentation on how President King and the IEB arrived at their decision on the same day the vote totals were announced.”

This what I why I voted no on that last contract:Why would we get anything after our contract was ratified with NONE of things we gave up is in there!Another thing how come Chicago Assbly and the Heights skilled trades had the same ballots as production had ,They were always separate ballots and even different colors,their has to some worded somewhere in our contract were skilled trades can allow strike if they voted it down,

hey I am tired of you bad mouthed skilled trades yes ,some play cards at lunch or breaks ,but as soon as that line is down they are running around like chickens with their head cut off and some our so stress out ,you got 1000 people waiting around doing while skilled trade person is trying to get that line to run ,how many production worker got limbs cut off and kill or hurt badly ,rushing to save the company money ,they say for every minute were down ford loses about 8000 dollars.We are on call just like a fireman or policeman ,what do you think they our doing when their isn't any trouble or fires,drive by firehouse they r shooting basketballs or chilling outside in the summer,or playing cards in fire house ,its same here they don't start fires or trouble ,they died them out and pm these machines whenever they r down to prevent future breakdown ,all this new equipment thats being put in is done on the weekend ,if u want to play with 440 volts or fix machines go to school ,which is never ending because techonogy is always changing ,,I know for a fact they died early and have no family life and live at the plant ,real high divorce rate .Living on the edge is not healthy ,try a sprint ,thats what they do and then they sit and wait for the next one.Yes their their are some lazy one just like any other jobs in the plant.If it wasn't for them you would not have a job to go too ,because time is money.

I will not ever thank IUAW anymore ,the only one I thank is the ones ,who dies on that bridge in Detroit and ones that got beaten up to win these benifits years ago and to be taken back so easily in what two contracts ,wait until 2015 we will all be making 22 dollars ,read the contracts not the highlites ,get lawyer friend and read the lowlites to us and explain ,it layman terms .Like how we being screws ,just sayin!

Amen to you ,this is real solidarity!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why do keep using Chucky you must be be the bride of chuckies ,every member has a right to speak there mind and the only response ,oh its chucky ,so don't listen to that person,we need to get back to being union ,before we dissolve ,this union and let the members decide who represent us not the company ass kissing IUAW ,greed is killing this union and I was all about having a union,after these last 2 contracts bugs bunny could have gotten us a better contract,we don't need IUAW they need our dues to pay their 2nd pension and healthcare plans .IUAW is greedy ,no good for members ,lets try to fine a way to vote them out ,they get elected like the pope ,but at least before they elect the pope ,they give us a little history about them,i been working for Ford for over 20 years ,I hate what the IUAW is doing to our union ,I hope you thiefs and liars ,you know who you our rot in hell ,look around you divided us for 6 digit incomes,I hope you have God in your life because you Are going to have explain all this shit to Him on Judgement Day .Right to work states doesn't sound bad at all,at least we won't have to support your wantabe ceo lifestyles.You can say lets kill the union and it ain't Chucky you pussy!!!

The UAW disburses more than $90 million annually to top officers, including UAW President Bob King, who makes more than $153,000 a year, not counting tens of thousands more in various perks and benefits. UAW Secretary Treasurer Dennis Williams takes in $142,000 while the various international vice presidents, including Ford department head James Settles, make $137,000 plus expenses. And they all probably have a nice raise waiting for them on the other side of a yes vote.Jimmy settles told Memebership at one of his scare tactic before voting meeting he makes 165,00 dollars.(I was There)Everybody Got raises except the really experience senority worker who cares about quality and not numbers,I want to start a petition to vote in IUAW top officers ,we have to vote for any public official but we can not have a say in who our next IUAW president ,does anybody know anything about Jimmy Settles ,but I do know when bob king step down ,he is 65 years that Jimmy Settles is the next president and we have no say ,what so ever,We need Jimmy Hoffa to represent us ,if they are voted in ,I bet we will be back at the tables ,because they don't want to be voted out ,but every contract the local chairmans gets voted out and IUAW is laughing all the way to the bank with the company.Just sayin!!!!!

ABS News Service, October 13, 2011 Ford CEO Alan Mulally called a news conference at 5 o’clock this afternoon and announced that he was terminating the services of UAW president Bob King and UAW vice president Jimmy Settles. “We pay these people to manage workers, not stir them up,” Mulally said with uncharacteristic venom. His comments referred to a Facebook posting on the official UAW web site which threatened a strike if workers voted against the tentative agreement between Ford and the UAW. Settles predicted that Ford would hire replacement workers if the UAW went on strike. Bob King twittered his agreement. Mulally was visibly outraged. “Why the hell would I hire scabs? That’s the damn dumbest thing I have ever heard. Ford encourages loyalty and dedication and teamwork. I don’t need blowhards like Settles and King sticking words in my mouth and riling up workers against the company.” Mulally went on to say that he trusted the wisdom and experience of Ford workers. “If they tell me that this contract is wrong, I take full responsibility. We will go back to the bargaining table and I will personally make sure that recommendations from workers are addressed.” Mulally told reporters at Ford’s Dearborn headquarters that he doesn’t expect any problems finding replacements for King and Settles. “We have UAW representatives on the front lines in Chicago and Dearborn who know how to lead. We don’t need some anarchist fringe element like King and Settles on our negotiating team.” Is This True

User Image oggydog wrote: If you do a strike vote, my feeling is the UAW and Ford will lock out the high paid members and bring in more two-tier. Any thing is posible. International has the Veba, GM/Chrysler stocks and two-tier to save them self's, they do not need us. If they got ride of the high payed members, GM/ Ford and Chryslers stock will go threw the roof. Big profits for the Big Three and the UAW International. All members must bring the fight to the Internationals doors. Read more: http://www.autonews.com/article/20110211/BLOG06/110219969/-1#ixzz1ccATz0TC

Yes, your membership dues paid union representatives were out in force beating the bushes and trying to sell this dog of a deal to the good folks on the shop floor. You can always rely on a visit from the “leadership” at election time and contract time. This time they are selling fear and falsehood on their visit. The first item on their agenda is to fear arbitration. Arbitration is one of the oldest forms of resolution to a dispute. Parties go to a non-biased arbitrator to solve their disagreements peaceably. If Marchionne felt he could get a better deal in arbitration than he got from Union Brother Bob King, he would be there in a nanosecond. No self respecting arbitrator would give you anything less than what the UAW and Chrysler had already agreed upon. Number two, they say arbitration is a prolonged process. We may have to wait a bit to get that $1750 before taxes signing bribe, but we just might get a better deal. There is nothing preventing the UAW from going back to the bargaining table to demand more, if we vote this down. Number three, they say this deal is “good” for the Skilled Trades. Any reading of the Skilled Trades Rationalization language proves otherwise. This contract is designed to eliminate skilled trades workers. Number four, they say Chrysler-Fiat does not have 27 billion cash on hand. Yes it does. Autoworker Caravan didn’t make this up... The Automotive News Europe reported it on October 12th! The company can afford to pay us a fair wage. Number five, they say you should beware the radicals. UAW President Walter Reuther was called a “radical” in his day and he was labeled the “most dangerous man in Detroit” by corporate suck ups of his time. Brother Reuther would go on to raise the wages and working conditions of millions of Americans, and the unconventional idea of industrial unionism caught on pretty good. I have yet to have a supervisor pressure me to vote for a bad agreement. But I’ve seen two International Reps, our current Local President, and a number of local officials try to strong arm this contract. Now, I don’t think asking for a fair agreement makes us overpaid, under worked, or greedy. We are not getting international rep pay, or routinely logging 7 days a week, 12 hours a day paychecks to make ends meet. I just think we need a raise in base pay for everyone, real COLA in our hourly rate, and Skilled Trades workers need protection from Sergio’s plan to cut their numbers. We can’t wait for 2015. Call me “radical”. Alex Wassell, UAW Local 869 Pdf Version CHRYSLER CONTRACT LOWLIGHTS Pdf version AUTOWORKER CARAVAN LOWLIGHTS CHRYSLER OCTOBER 2011 This contract has NO FAIRNESS. We ALL deserve better. There is a lot of “NO” in this contract: NO parity with General Motors or Ford.  We get $1750 upon ratification. The other $1750, only “when the company achieves financial stability,”is misrepresented as a ratification bonus—we might not get it at all.  We get only $500 a year “inflation protection” which is less than the $600 Christmas bonus we lost in 2009. We might get another $500 for quality, but “no award will be paid if Chrysler Group LLC determines that targets were not met.” An “audit score adjustment factor” would give workers in some plants up to $1000, but only if they achieve a bronze or higher WCM score (not likely in the next four years).  Profit sharing? Chrysler can make up to $1.25 billion in operating profits—a long shot considering the company claims to have “lost” $254 million in the first half of 2011—before we get a cent.  In other words all but $3750 depends on “metrics” that we have no say in and minimal control over. NO repayment of past losses! $3750 does not begin to compensate us for the concessions of 2009—“suspensions” of raises, bonuses, holidays and more that were supposed to be temporary—that cost eachworker a minimum of $9000. Bonuses that average less than $1000 per year do not make up for the thousandsof dollars we will have lost at the end of our Chrysler career if we allow the “suspensions” to be transformed into permanent losses. NO end to two-tier pay. Raises for “entry level” workers—UAW sisters and brothers like everyone else—leave them at least a $9 an hour behind “traditional” employees and their pay can still barely support a family. There are no commitments to make Temporary Part Time workers permanent. TPTs and Summer Vacation Replacements do not count towards the 25% cap on “entry level,” which does not even go into effect until 2015. Even if some entry level workers are moved into the “traditional” pay bracket they will not get traditional benefits. All these tiers lower wages for everyone in the long run and keep us all “divided and conquered.” NO COLA or improvement factor raises—“traditional” pay is frozen for another four years. We have not had a raise since 2006. Are we paying the same for food, gas and utilities as we did in 2006? Time-and-ahalf only after 40 hours. NO guarantees that there will be 2100 new jobs; any new jobs will be 100 per cent second tier. New jobs will be offset by reduction of jobs in skilled trades. Language that made the company fill attritional openings has been deleted. A new loophole—“market related volume declines” has been added to the toothless moratorium on plant closings and spinoffs. The UAW workforce at Chrysler could be even less than 26,000 by 2015. NO end to forced transfers of workers on indefinite layoff—without “closed plant” status they still lose their seniority. Laid off workers run out of SUB after 26-52 weeks. The job bank is gone. NO let up in the decimation of skilled trades. The company will continue cutting skilled trades to the bone through outsourcing, combining and eliminating classifications (“rationalization”), and dumping more trades work on production through Autonomous Maintenance. Lines of demarcation will be a thing of the past. Two thirds of all skilled positions could be eliminated at Chrysler, Ford and GM if they follow the pattern of GM’s totally restructured Lake Orion assembly plant. NO lost holidays returned. We did not get back Easter Monday and lost the “floating holiday” (the one Friday before Labor Day that was in the last contract) and July 5, 2013 (the Friday after Thursday, July 4, which we would have off with pay in previous contracts). NO restoration of relief time cut in 2009, which amounts to roughly 25 hours per year. Six to eight minutes per day now cut for Alternative Work Schedule/Flexible Operating Pattern workers. NO $700 Christmas bonus for retirees and pensions are frozen for four years. NO bereavement for same-sex partners. NO change to the inhumane combined attendance and tardiness procedure. One occurrence removed now, and then 4 more years under the gun. NO end to AWS and FOP, with some crews having their regularly scheduled 10-12 hour days on weekends for straight time. Dundee and Trenton only won—after Dundee voted to strike—relief from changing shifts from week to week. The company can impose AWS or FOP on a plant without local union approval. NO fairness in overtime: “the Local Unions and local plant managements may negotiate local agreements for the purposes of equalizing team based”—not by rotation or seniority anymore—“overtime hours or overtime opportunities in the same department and classification and on the same shift.” AND NO, Fiat-Chrysler is not broke. Cash reserves of Fiat and Chrysler have been combined and the company is sitting on a pot worth $27 billion. Car sales are up and market share has increased. Chrysler’s hourly labor costs are $7-9 less than Ford, GM and Toyota. The Treasury loans have been paid in full ahead of schedule, drastically lowering lending rates. And they did not “lose” $254 million. When the bosses borrowed money to pay off the Treasury there were servicing fees. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and their cohorts got half billion bucks. We got a button! We are forfeiting everything we thought we could get back if we vote yes. Many of us are understandably worried about what we could lose if we vote no and the contract goes to arbitration. There is no predicting how the arbitrator would rule or how long it would take. We are on unchartered waters. We don’t know what might weigh in on the ruling. There are the GM and Ford patterns, and there’s Fiat's 27-billion-dollar cash reserve, but Chrysler claims by itself it has only $10 billion. An anti-union arbitrator might try to squeeze more givebacks.

He means taxing in other way ,like higher co-payment ,higher co-payment on their prescriations,and taking some other things ,like wheel chairs u have pay more etc ,thats taxing or hurting the retiring on fixed income. .

We need to have national election for IUAW president ,we not putting a pope in charge ,where everything is done in closed door ,when a descision smoke comes out of chimmy or is it cigar smoke.

How much money was taken from our IUAW strike fund and what was it used for ,I can not believe what I just read ,how they change the name of the fund and took money to organize labor union ,I hope u gave some to those wall street protesters,they our fighting company greed and they we should be fighting IUAW which is a company now with all those useless stocks their holding to fund veba ,plus what we gave them from our cola to our 10% from profit sharing ,and why not fund the retireing health fund with our strike fund ,we never used it .

Also like to thank IUAW for this:NO repayment of past losses! $3750 does not begin to compensate us for the concessions of 2009—“suspensions” of raises, bonuses, holidays and more that were supposed to be temporary—that cost eachworker a minimum of $9000. Bonuses that average less than $1000 per year do not make up for the thousandsof dollars we will have lost at the end of our Chrysler career if we allow the “suspensions” to be transformed into permanent losses. NO end to two-tier pay. Raises for “entry level” workers—UAW sisters and brothers like everyone else—leave them at least a $9 an hour behind “traditional” employees and their pay can still barely support a family. There are no commitments to make Temporary Part Time workers permanent. TPTs and Summer Vacation Replacements do not count towards the 25% cap on “entry level,” which does not even go into effect until 2015. Even if some entry level workers are moved into the “traditional” pay bracket they will not get traditional benefits. All these tiers lower wages for everyone in the long run and keep us all “divided and conquered.” NO COLA or improvement factor raises—“traditional” pay is frozen for another four years. We have not had a raise since 2006. Are we paying the same for food, gas and utilities as we did in 2006? Time-and-ahalf only after 40 hours. NO guarantees that there will be 2100 new jobs; any new jobs will be 100 per cent second tier. New jobs will be offset by reduction of jobs in skilled trades. Language that made the company fill attritional openings has been deleted. A new loophole—“market related volume declines” has been added to the toothless moratorium on plant closings and spinoffs. The UAW workforce at Chrysler could be even less than 26,000 by 2015. NO end to forced transfers of workers on indefinite layoff—without “closed plant” status they still lose their seniority. Laid off workers run out of SUB after 26-52 weeks. The job bank is gone. NO let up in the decimation of skilled trades. The company will continue cutting skilled trades to the bone through outsourcing, combining and eliminating classifications (“rationalization”), and dumping more trades work on production through Autonomous Maintenance. Lines of demarcation will be a thing of the past. Two thirds of all skilled positions could be eliminated at Chrysler, Ford and GM if they follow the pattern of GM’s totally restructured Lake Orion assembly plant. NO lost holidays returned. We did not get back Easter Monday and lost the “floating holiday” (the one Friday before Labor Day that was in the last contract) and July 5, 2013 (the Friday after Thursday, July 4, which we would have off with pay in previous contracts). NO restoration of relief time cut in 2009, which amounts to roughly 25 hours per year. Six to eight minutes per day now cut for Alternative Work Schedule/Flexible Operating Pattern workers. NO $700 Christmas bonus for retirees and pensions are frozen for four years. NO bereavement for same-sex partners. NO change to the inhumane combined attendance and tardiness procedure. One occurrence removed now, and then 4 more years under the gun. NO end to AWS and FOP, with some crews having their regularly scheduled 10-12 hour days on weekends for straight time. Dundee and Trenton only won—after Dundee voted to strike—relief from changing shifts from week to week. The company can impose AWS or FOP on a plant without local union approval. NO fairness in overtime: “the Local Unions and local plant managements may negotiate local agreements for the purposes of equalizing team based”—not by rotation or seniority anymore—“overtime hours or overtime opportunities in the same department and classification and on the same shift.” AND NO, Fiat-Chrysler is not broke. Cash reserves of Fiat and Chrysler have been combined and the company is sitting on a pot worth $27 billion. Car sales are up and market share has increased. Chrysler’s hourly labor costs are $7-9 less than Ford, GM and Toyota. The Treasury loans have been paid in full ahead of schedule, drastically lowering lending rates. And they did not “lose” $254 million. When the bosses borrowed money to pay off the Treasury there were servicing fees. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and their cohorts got half billion bucks. We got a button! We are forfeiting everything we thought we could get back if we vote yes. Many of us are understandably worried about what we could lose if we vote no and the contract goes to arbitration. There is no predicting how the arbitrator would rule or how long it would take. We are on unchartered waters. We don’t know what might weigh in on the ruling. There are the GM and Ford patterns, and there’s Fiat's 27-billion-dollar cash reserve, but Chrysler claims by itself it has only $10 billion. An anti-union arbitrator might try to squeeze more givebacks. The “Occupy Wall St.” protests in New York and hundreds of other cities have put the spotlight on corporate greed. One way we can protest corporate greed is by voting NO on this contract. We would be acting in a proud and dignified manner in the tradition of the sit-downs of the 1930s. We would be showing Marchionne that we reject his “culture of poverty” and will not be blackmailed by scare tactics. Whatever the vote, we rank-and-file members have to come together. We can’t let tiers keep us divided. We need to find a way to revive the fighting tradition of the UAW.

It’s not the unions place to manage the companies! In reality the blame for the condition the UAW is in has to be placed on former and present International leadership. Gettelfinger said it himself in his speech, he takes full responsibility for the taxing of our retirees for their health care. He should have said in his speech that he took responsibility for the 160,000 jobs in the parts sector the UAW allowed companies to eliminate since 2000. The UAW has not authorized one strike to prevent those losses. Not one! As written earlier, organizations (bureaucracies) just like living organisms becomes fat, lazy and complacent from over indulgence during good times. The UAW leadership has been walking knee deep in one hundred dollar bills in the halls of the UAW-GM Center for Human Resources “CHR”, the UAW-DaimlerChrysler National Training Center “NTC” and the UAW-Ford National Training Program NTP for the past two decades and played an integral part in the downsizing of the automakers, while at the same time, providing over 150 International Staff jobs of the 509 International Representatives. I encourage you to go to the ESA web sight mentioned above and look for the UAW International Union’s LM-2. You will see that because of efforts by UAW members, the ESA has finally required all unions to report how much the union receives in charge backs from the Joint funds. The UAW received over $29 million dollars from UAW negotiated Joint Fund Programs, which is another form of Body Fat! What Ron Gettelfinger did not do, was talk about you, the individual dues paying member. All through the Convention, little if anything came from the podium about the individual member. Only what you must do to help your company, and nothing about what your union is going to do for you!! Ron Gettelfinger’s new plan for the UAW appears to be “dues paying members, whop needs them? I can hear Gettelfinger’s thoughts as he thinks, boy the UAW will be a great organization once we do away with all those annoying members.

Wall Street is tickled with this tentative agreement. Ford is rolling in profits. We don’t get the concessions back? Management got theirs! We voted NO in 2009 to keep the right to strike. But you wouldn’t know it from this contract...  Walton Hills Stamping & Twin Cities Assembly will close. Alternative Work Schedules (AWS). They can make you work straight time on Saturdays & Sundays, 4-10’s etc. No COLA Legal Services Plan Terminated VEBA inadequately funded No pension increase for retirees.“Manufacturing Work Groups” Mixing of Production & Skilled Trades work.Outsourcing will continue & increase.Lost break time not restored. Time & a half after 8 hours of a regular shift is not restored. The Tier 2 will grow, increasing the likelihood that we will all be Tier 2 eventually

I want to vote in IUAW memembers,and my new contract book ,I being putting my money away ,when the nation goes down the hill.