UAW President Stephen Yokich said Wednesday he plans to become personally involved in talks to resolve the 13-day-old strike at a Chrysler Corp. engine plant in Detroit and also may join talks to settle strikes at two General Motors Corp. assembly plants.
Yokich’s direct involvement would be unusual, since such talks are typically delegated to the UAW vice president assigned to each of the Detroit automakers. UAW workers walked out of the engine plant April 10 after Chrysler decided to farm out 250 jobs building driveshafts to Toledo-based Dana Corp.
“Chrysler’s making a terrible mistake,” Yokich said after the union’s annual legislative conference in Washington. “The relations have been excellent in Chrysler, and now to have this happen. And in the name of what?”
The strike has forced Chrysler to close seven of its 15 North American assembly plants and is costing the automaker $20 million a day in profit, analysts say.
Yokich’s involvement could jump-start talks between the UAW and Chrysler, whose negotiators have met in just one brief session since April 10. The sides are in touch daily by phone.
As for GM, Yokich said he expects more factory-level strikes like the two current ones. Union workers walked off their jobs at GM’s Oklahoma City car plant on April 4 and at the company’s Pontiac, Mich., truck assembly factory Tuesday night.
A weak Japanese yen is contributing to the rash of UAW strikes by pressuring automakers to cut costs and union jobs, Yokich said.
He criticized GM for what he said was failure to invest in some plants to keep them competitive and for breaking promises to workers at the Pontiac plant.
He also said that GM views its $14.6 billion cash reserve as an opportunity to get tough with the union.
That attitude, he said, undermines his ability to keep order inside the union.
