Ben Stanley
Posted Sep. 30, 2015 at 3:51 PM
Updated Sep 30, 2015 at 11:17 PMBELVIDERE — In a critical vote Wednesday, union members at the Belvidere Assembly plant overwhelmingly rejected a four-year contract proposal with Fiat Chrysler.According to United Auto Workers Local 1268 President George Welitschinsky, 65 percent of production workers and 70 percent of skilled trade workers voted against the deal.Members at large assembly plants in Toledo, Ohio, and Sterling Heights, Michigan, rejected the pact in voting Tuesday. Most other Fiat Chrysler factories also turned down the contract.The deal, which included pay raises but didn't end a lower wage rate for employees hired after 2007, was tentatively reached on Sept. 15. Ending the two-tier wage system has been a major goal for the union.About 40,000 union Fiat Chrysler employees have been working under a contract extension since Sept. 14. Plant-level union leaders, including Welitschinsky, were summoned to Detroit for a meeting Thursday to decide the next move. UAW leaders could decide to call a strike, head back to the negotiating table or turn their bargaining attention to Ford or General Motors."I’m confident that the UAW and the FCA negotiating teams will reach an agreement before it comes to a strike," said Jarid Funderburg, executive director of Growth Dimensions, a Belvidere and Boone County economic development organization. "But if it does, it will impact not only Belvidere, but the entire region, simply because the Belvidere Assembly plant is such a huge employer for the region."The long-term effect, you could imagine, for a community of this size would be devastating."The Belvidere Assembly plant employs about 4,500 people.Kelley Blue Book Senior Auto Analyst Karl Brauer said in August that a UAW strike wouldn't come as a surprise, since big automakers have been adamant that ending the two-tier wage system would be too costly.In addition to wages, workers also are concerned about shifting car production to Mexico and replacing it with trucks and SUVs.Speculation has emerged among industry insiders that Jeep Cherokee production could move to the Belvidere Assembly plant in the next few years. The model would be a welcome addition to Belvidere’s lineup, since a five-year plan released in May 2014 indicated Jeep would discontinue production of the Patriot and Compass in 2016. Both vehicles are built in Belvidere. But rumors also have circulated that Dodge Dart production could shift from Belvidere to Mexico.Cherokee is the top-selling Jeep-brand model this year at 140,000 vehicles, compared with the Patriot (80,000) and Compass (40,000), according to sales data Fiat Chrysler released Sept. 2.Ben Stanley: 815-987-1369; bstanley@rrstar.com; @ben_j_stanley
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