DETROIT, Oct. 22— The United Automobile Workers union has come face to face with a protest vote by its members at Chrysler over a tentative labor agreement at the automaker, clouding its chances of winning approval.þþWorkers at all four big assembly plants where voting has taken place have rejected the contract, including three over the weekend. However, the agreement has been approved at some smaller factories, and still has a good chance of ratification.þþWith more than half of Chrysler’s work force yet to vote, a tally of available results compiled by The New York Times indicated that slightly more workers had voted in favor of the deal. The tally was based on figures made public by individual union locals, and in some cases, on estimates from percentages provided by the locals. The U.A.W. has not released any official results.þþThe no votes, at plants in St. Louis; Newark, Del.; and Detroit, among others, came amid fears by some workers that the contract did not give them as much protection as a similar one at General Motors, which won approval earlier this month. þþThose workers see the lack of job guarantees as violating the union’s long-held principle of pattern bargaining, or winning the same terms at each Detroit auto company.þþThe latest plant to reject the contract was Chrysler’s Jefferson North factory in Detroit, which makes the Jeep Grand Cherokee. Sixty percent of workers there voted against the contract on Sunday.þþ“They’re not making any investments in future products, so I voted no,” said Erik Williams, 36, a Jefferson North assembly line worker. þþJob protection is a critical point, since Chrysler is in the midst of a revamping effort that will eliminate 13,000 jobs in North America over the next few years, and because the company was sold in August to Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm.þþThe rejections are “a protest vote against Chrysler, because of the feeling that the pattern has been broken, and Chrysler should have given more guarantees,” Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., said Sunday.þþHe added, “It’s a protest against the leadership of the U.A.W. for agreeing to this. They want to send the leadership back to the table to get a better deal.”þþBefore that happens, however, U.A.W. leaders are lobbying workers in an effort to win approval for the tentative agreement, which was reached Oct. 10 after a six-hour strike. þþLast week, the union’s vice president at Chrysler, General Holiefield, spoke at meetings in Detroit and Delaware, while the union sent a letter to local leaders asking them to sign a memo endorsing the contract.þþEven the union’s president, Ron Gettelfinger, attended sessions at Local 7 in Detroit, which represents workers at the Jefferson North plant who make the Jeep Grand Cherokee. Mr. Gettelfinger sat in the back of the room, however, and did not talk about the contract, participants said.þþThe U.A.W. had no comment. Privately, union officials said such activity was not unusual when a contract’s fate appears uncertain. þþStill, Mr. Holiefield’s involvement did not lead to victory at the Newark plant, which rejected the contract on Saturday. Chrysler plans to shut the plant under its reorganization program.þþThe Newark local’s president, Richard E. McDonaugh Jr., said those who voted against the contract did not completely understand its details, a theme cited by other union officials.þþMr. McDonaugh said he was “very, very fearful of what would happen if we go back into negotiations, what they could take away from us. I really feel this was the best deal they could get.”þþBut that deal did not include the same promises of future work that were part of the G.M. contract, according to a summary distributed by the union.þþOne endangered plant is the St. Louis South factory in Fenton, Mo., which builds minivans. Future investments there depend on sales of Chrysler minivans, which are also built in Windsor, Ontario. þþWorkers at St. Louis South rejected the contract in results announced Saturday, joining their counterparts at the St. Louis North truck plant, who also voted no last week.þþOn Sunday, the parking lot at Chrysler’s Jefferson North plant in Detroit became a site of debate. Workers huddled in small groups, trying to decide how to vote on the contract. þþ“There’s been so much controversy, I’m just trying to talk to people,” said Arthur Parker, 51, a forklift driver, who later said he had voted no.þþJeff Alberts, 48, of Toledo, Ohio, also said he had voted no. “We’ve got to start somewhere in this country,” said Mr. Alberts, who works on the assembly line and has a two-hour daily commute. “The middle class is getting killed.”þþBut James Tucker, 42, another assembly line worker, said he had voted for the contract.þþ“There’s a lot of competition out there now,” he said, referring to plants owned by foreign auto companies in the United States, “and if we go back to the table, we could end up with less than what we have now.”þþ
Source: NY Times
