Tower Automotive workers accept pay cuts, save plants
Hourly workers at two Tower Automotive plants have voted to accept pay cuts that will ensure their plants remain open as the supplier struggles to emerge from bankruptcy. Tower had asked a judge for the power to cancel union contracts and cut workers as it saw fit, but the acceptance of wage reductions at these two plants have prompted the company to withdraw its request. About 2,100 hourly workers will be affected by these pay cuts at plants in Bluffton, Ohio and Elkton, Michigan. Bluffton UAW members will be receiving a pay cut of about 75 cents an hour, while Elkton workers will see their hourly wages drop by about $1. Another plant run by Tower Automotive in Clinton Township, Michigan also voted on and approved a two-year contract extension with no changes. Tower Automotive had reached these tentative deals with the UAW and USW in late July and have been waiting since that time for union members to ratify the arrangement.
Clearly members of the United Auto Workers and the United Steelworkers of America that represent these facilities realized they would either have to accept a pay cut or risk the closing of the plants all together.
[Source: Detroit Free Press]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Buzzsaw 3:14PM (8/28/2006)
Wise move by the workers; it would be nice to see some executives to make similar (but proportional) wage "adjustments" in support of their company instead of bailing out, job-hopping and/or doing essentially nothing as they wait for the golden parachute.
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Jeff 3:16PM (8/28/2006)
I'm glad someone had a bit of sense. Maybe there are more sensible people out there than some of us thought...
Of course, the alternative was to close the whole thing down, so there wasn't much choice.
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Jeff 3:18PM (8/28/2006)
"...it would be nice to see some executives to make similar (but proportional) wage "adjustments"..."
Yes it would, but typically the executive salaries are governed by the shareholders. Cutting executive salaries would just raise shareholder profits, not put money directly into the company. Of course, this applies only to publicly traded companies.
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Michael Karesh 3:48PM (8/28/2006)
I met Tower CEO Kathleen Ligocki when she was still a senior exec at Ford. She seemed a definite cut or two above the average. But Tower's situation when she took over was already pretty bad.
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Whydrive 4:28PM (8/28/2006)
We all know white people are incompetent and overpaid. It's because of the white people that Tower is in the situation they're in.
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