Gm Workers

General Motors Corp. wants Maryland to halt payments of unemployment benefits to about 3,000 union workers at its Southeast Baltimore van assembly plant who were laid off last month as a result of strikes at two GM parts plants in Flint, Mich.The local development comes as GM is indicating that it may drop some low-profit cars if United Auto Workers' strikes continue into August.The No. 1 automaker had asked the state Office of Unemployment Insurance to either reconsider its June 12 decision to pay the benefits to the laid-off workers at the Broening Highway plant or it will appeal to the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board.

Carolyn Taylor, a retired General Motors worker, died of an apparent heart attack Saturday at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. She was 69 and lived in Northeast Baltimore. Born Carolyn Daveta Pitts in Baltimore and raised in East Baltimore, she was a 1961 graduate of Dunbar High School, where she was class salutatorian. She attended the old Baltimore City Community College and studied nursing. She worked as a home caregiver after high school. She then worked at the old Western Electric Co.'s Point Breeze Works.

Labor Day is a national tribute to American workers who have contributed to the strength, prosperity and well-being of our country. It is my belief that our GM Baltimore Transmission plant team members and partners of United Auto Workers Local 239 embody the character of Labor Day as much as any other workforce in American history. At this time last year, General Motors had just emerged from bankruptcy thanks to the American public, and we were all unsure about our future and our company.

Labor Day is a national tribute to American workers who have contributed to the strength, prosperity and well-being of our country. It is my belief that our GM Baltimore Transmission plant team members and partners of United Auto Workers Local 239 embody the character of Labor Day as much as any other workforce in American history. At this time last year, General Motors had just emerged from bankruptcy thanks to the American public, and we were all unsure about our future and our company.

It's not a very hospitable place, that 5100 block of Holabird Avenue.There's a lot of asphalt and concrete, and the sidewalk temperature was pushing 125 degrees at noon yesterday.A chain-link fence topped by three strands of barbed wire stretches the entire block. On one side is the sprawling, but idle, General Motors Corp. minivan assembly plant. On the other, about 35 placard-carrying auto workers who were expressing their displeasure over the way the plant is being operated.The striking members of the United Auto Workers were beginning the third week of a walkout over what they charge are unsafe working conditions.

The 3,500 workers at General Motors Corp.'s plant on Broening Highway were to begin filling out unemployment compensation forms today in preparation for a three-week shutdown.Starting Monday, the East Baltimore plant that makes minivans will be closed for two weeks to reduce production in the wake of sagging automobile sales nationwide. The shutdown is to be followed by the traditional one-week holiday closing of the plant until Jan. 2.In addition to receiving state unemployment benefits, the workers will get payments from GM that will enable them to receive 85 percent of their normal pay for two of the weeks of the shutdown.

Members of Local 239 of the United Auto Workers union yesterday approved a new three-year pact that preserves past gains while adding a few new ones for hourly workers at the General Motors Corp. assembly plant on Broening Highway.Rodney A. Trump, president of the local, which represents about 3,200 workers at the van assembly plant, said that keeping the "saver clause" -- which preserves provisions from previous contracts -- was a key component of the new pact."This was a major accomplishment," he said.

On Monday their paychecks stop, and the long days at home start. Wall Street, Washington and Big Labor are playing double-dare chicken over their future. Half of America seems to think they're greedy crybabies; the other half, hapless victims. But the people who make Chevrolet Tahoes and GMC Yukons just want to get back to work. "The best thing I can do is just try and survive and not worry about things," says Ed Tilley, a quality manager at General Motors' White Marsh transmission plant who, like thousands of GM workers, faces a two-month furlough.

ELSMERE, Del. -- Joe Carrere couldn't believe it.Soon after he reported to work at GM's factory outside Wilmington Thursday afternoon, he and other second-shift workers were shown a videotaped announcement that the plant would close after the 1996 model year."

General Motors Corp.'s van assembly plant in Southeast Baltimore, idled by two-month strikes elsewhere, will resume production Aug. 17, the company announced yesterday.That's about two weeks later than GM factories in Wisconsin, New Jersey, Delaware, Louisiana and Missouri, a delay that results from routine but needed maintenance and has nothing to do with uncertainty about the plant's future, a local union official said."We're certainly happy that they reached an agreement, and, yes, we're happy to go back to work," said Charles R. Alfred, president of United Auto Workers Local 239, which represents about 3,000 workers at the factory.

A hybrid-car maker plans to reopen the shuttered General Motors plant in Wilmington, Del., that employed several hundred Marylanders, igniting hope of new job opportunities for the laid-off workers. The fledgling Fisker Automotive of California announced Tuesday that it is buying the assembly plant, which made Pontiac and Saturn roadsters before it closed this summer under GM's bankruptcy. Fisker, which recently won approval for almost $530 million in government loans to develop plug-in hybrid electric cars, plans to begin production at the plant in late 2012 and to employ 2,000 there by 2014.

Fathers get respect if they deserve it I was disappointed to read Kevin Cowherd's personal conclusions to a national survey on in-home care for elderly parents ("Lousy survey shows dads get no respect," May 10). Those surveyed were more likely to say they would take care of their mothers than their fathers. In this commentary, Cowherd paints fathers as the helpless victims. From my view, the survey results are a reflection of the type of relationships people have with their parents. It is often the case that fathers are not involved in any aspect of their children's lives - as youth or adults.

On Monday their paychecks stop, and the long days at home start. Wall Street, Washington and Big Labor are playing double-dare chicken over their future. Half of America seems to think they're greedy crybabies; the other half, hapless victims. But the people who make Chevrolet Tahoes and GMC Yukons just want to get back to work. "The best thing I can do is just try and survive and not worry about things," says Ed Tilley, a quality manager at General Motors' White Marsh transmission plant who, like thousands of GM workers, faces a two-month furlough.

General Motors Corp.'s worst-case labor scenario came true yesterday when workers at a Kansas City, Kan., factory that builds the hot-selling Chevrolet Malibu walked off the job. GM had hoped to avoid a strike at the Fairfax Assembly plant, which is one of two U.S. factories that have been scrambling to keep up with the demand for the Malibu, arguably the automaker's most critical vehicle on the market. The United Auto Workers launched the walkout yesterday morning after a strike deadline passed with no new labor deal for the plant's 2,600 workers.

The lingering strike at General Motors Corp.'s chief axle supplier has halted production at GM Powertrain's Baltimore Transmission Plant. About 280 hourly workers have been temporarily laid off at the White Marsh plant, where the manufacturing of transmissions has ceased, GM spokesman John Raut said yesterday. The two-month strike at Detroit-based American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc. has cut production at about 30 GM facilities, or close to half its plants, according to Dan Flores, also a GM spokesman.

Herman Trafton is napping in the van's back seat. Wanda Hopkins is wolfing down a quick McDonald's lunch one row up. Adam Falkowski is complaining about the union, again. And near the front, Delaney Bert is watching Little Man on the drop-down TV screen. They are members of a vanishing tribe, the well-paid manufacturing worker. They joined the factory right out of high school, some of them, and over the decades have accrued a good salary and benefits. And they are doing whatever it takes - even if it means commuting 120 miles round trip to Delaware - to hold on to jobs that will soon be gone.

DETROIT -- About 3,000 workers walked off their jobs yesterday at a General Motors Corp. plant in Lansing, Mich.The striking workers, members of the United Automobile Workers union, build bodies for the midsized Oldsmobile Achieva, Buick Skylark and Pontiac Grand Am models.An additional 4,200 GM workers in Lansing, who make chassis for the cars, were idled shortly thereafter.Ted Hartman, president of UAW Local 602, said the workers' most important grievance was, "They put too much work on a person, more than he can do."

Workers filing out of Baltimore's van plant yesterday had just lost their jobs again, this time because of the United Auto Workers' strike at the General Motors plant in Flint, Mich.But they had a clear message:Solidarity.Employees were told at noon that the Broening Highway plant, which assembles Chevrolet Astro and GMC Safari vans, didn't have the inventory to continue production.Living with uncertainty has become commonplace for the workers, many of whom transferred to Baltimore after other plants were permanently closed.

DETROIT -- Negotiators for the United Automobile Workers and General Motors have agreed on the framework for a health care trust, GM's key demand in talks on a new contract, people with direct knowledge of the private discussions said yesterday. But the two sides face a long weekend of bargaining on other matters, such as pay and job guarantees, before negotiations are completed, they added. GM and the UAW have tentatively sorted out the details for a voluntary employee benefit association.