POSTED JULY 06, 2010

The plant has been undergoing some changes recently. There were 13 items that the Bargaining Committee had tentatively agreed to, and the membership voted in those changes back in April. We are having the vote on the Incentive Transition Proposal for the Fort Wayne plant on Tuesday, July, 06, 2010. If the membership votes this in, that will help set this plant up to move forward with the Dana Operating System (DOS). The membership has been asked to make some really tough decisions the last few months. The Bargaining Committee feels between the focus groups and the plant wide meetings, that there has been some really informative questions asked. My hat is off to the membership for stepping up to the plate when asked to, with very little information. This is why we consider the Fort Wayne plant the leader.
We have had steady callbacks for the last 5 weeks. Most of our customers are down the 1st and 2nd weeks of July, except for Chrysler. They are shutting down the 1st week of August.

Jess Myers
Chairman of Bargaining Committee
USW Local 903

POSTED MAY 28, 2010

The plant schedules are still strong thru the month of June. Chrysler isn't shutting down till the first week of Aug. We had another meeting with Dr. Schuster on May 20, 2010. We have a 4 person sub-committee that is meeting with Dr. Schuster. We are making positive progress. During this whole process Dr. Schuster's assistant, Dee Hoffman, is conducting an interview, discussion, survey with a random selection of employee's (hourly & management). She is trying to get a feel for the culture we have here. According to her, these meetings have been very successful. We have 2 more meeting with Dr. Schuster scheduled for June 8, & 15, 2010.

POSTED APRIL 30, 2010

On Tuesday, April 27^th, some of the Bargaining Committee got to meet Joe Futcher, our new Vice President of Operations. He gave us a brief history of his work background, and believes that the Fort Wayne Plant is heading in the right direction. He made a statement that I thought made a positive impact on our discussions; “If it’s sold in the U.S., it should be made in the U.S.”. That’s the kind of thinking we need at the top.
Schedules are holding strong for the month of May. We were told on Tuesday that Chryslers JK is only shutting down the first week of August. Plus, they are working over time the months of June and July. The rest of our customers are scheduled to shutdown the second week of July.
Mike Esselburn, our H.R. Manager, is retiring today after 33 years. He came up through the ranks, from an hourly worker to H.R. He starts his new position Monday as the new H.R. Manager for the City of Fort Wayne. We wish him well….

POSTED OCTOBER 13, 2009

There was a layoff of 31 people effective 9-12-2009.The reason was Chrysler called in and scheduled a down week. So the company adjusted their manpower for the remaining weeks of October. If the schedules stay strong through November, then there might be a call-back for November. Decembers schedule still looks weak.

    During the last 14 weeks or so the bargaining committee has been meeting with the company to discuss the problems the plant has been experiencing with productivity and maintenance. These discussions have been open and informative. The company has openly said that they have a list of 15 things that they feel are a hindrance to the plant. We have openly asked the company to tell us what they think the problems are with productivity. The Bargaining Committee feels that we have machines that are constantly down or always going down, or we don't have the parts to run if the machines are running.
    We, as a committee, have decided that we will institute a zone maintenance program, and an expanded role that the group leaders will have in manning, maintaining, and running their departments. This will only take place in the gear division for now. If it works out, then we will look at expanding it plant wide. We have told the company that in the zone maintenance, the craft that are assigned to the zone will work as a team. So when an order comes in, the team will try and get the machine up and running to the best of their ability. Because in the end, that is what really counts, "the machine up and running". We all make money when we are producing parts!
    On the group leader subject, we have given them expanded duties and the company has said that they are going to spend some time and money and give them some intense training to better utilize them in the department. So we decided that we would create a living document that states that the group leaders, only in the gear division, and on first-shift would have departmental seniority. That means they would only get cut out of their department when they get laid off. This is for a trial period of 6 months. A living document means that it can be changed at any time. If we want this to be permanent, then contract negotiations is the place to do that. I hope this explanation of what we are doing doesn't confuse everybody even more. Talk to your union steward or come to the union office. The Bargaining Committee is striving to keep our jobs with our standard of living, and to make sure the plant is still here for a long time.
 

POSTED AUGUST 21, 2009

We are calling 10 more people back to work, effective 8/24/09. September, October, and now November schedules, still look strong. Our next productivity, scheduling, and maintenance meeting with French, Bueter, Benson, Sabo, the Fort Wayne staff, and our Director, Jim Robinson, will be September 18th

POSTED AUGUST 10, 2009

The company told us that the schedules for the month of September and October are about 13 million for each month. That means that there will probably be some type of call-back in the next few weeks. How many though, we won't know until they tell us. There is no timeline on when they have to notify us of a recall.
We have a meeting with the company on Tuesday, August 11th, with our Director Jim Robinson. The topics are Production, Scheduling, and Maintenance.
 

POSTED JULY 14, 2009

There is a temporary lay off for the week of 07/13/09. The plant will be shut down for the week of 07/20/09. We are scheduled to return to work on Monday, 07/27/2009.

POSTED JUNE 24, 2009

We had a meeting with our District 7 Director Jim Robinson, Corporate Labor Relations, and Corporate HR. We discussed productivity and maintenance in the Fort Wayne plant. Management seems to think they need to restructure our labor agreement for us to survive. Needless to say, we as the Bargaining Committee do not share the same feelings. Whether or not we can work together and fix the productivity problems is yet to be seen. We formed three committees to try and fix three problem areas:  Productivity, Scheduling, and Maintenance. We are looking at helping to fix the problems, not just give a wish list.
We are not getting a lot of answers on our grievances. We had a 4th step meeting on April 7, 2009. Contract language states that this meeting will be with the Plant Manager. Our Plant Manger postponed this meeting twice before he finally said he wasn't going to meet with us. So Corporate HR came in his place. We don't know if he still knows what the issues in this plant are as far as grievances go.
There was a recall on 06/19/2009. Roughly 60-65 people came back to work.

POSTED JUNE 10, 2009

Management told us late Tuesday afternoon that they are gearing up for Chrysler the week of June 22nd. They are expecting Chrysler to be back to work the week of June 29th. Today's news, that the courts are not going to block the sale of Chrysler to Fiat, paves the way for Chrysler to go back to work.
The Company has issued a bulletin announcing a vacation shutdown for the week of July 20th, 2009.
Other than that; we'll all be glad when everyone is back to work.

POSTED MAY 29, 2009

We had a small callback of 21 people on May 26th. Chrysler is still shut down. Ford is still expected to shut down, starting June 22nd for 4 weeks. We are calling 8 skilled craft employees back to start on June 1st.
Our District 7 Director, Jim Robinson, was in the plant on Tuesday. He toured the plant, and tried to get a feel for what for what we do here.
Our updated manpower numbers are on the home page of the web site.
Dana released information today, stating that they hired a new CEO. His name is James Sweetnam, and he comes from Eaton Corporation. That's about all we know about him at this time. I'll release details as they come. Read about James Sweetnam at Dana.com

POSTED MAY 15, 2009

On Monday, May 11, 2009, we had 115 members temporarily laid off, due to Chrysler shutting down during bankruptcy.
We have 171 employees left working in the plant, 291 on layoff, last person working is clock #5923. Until Chrysler gets back to work our manpower levels will probably remain the same.

Its looks like the econoline will be down for the following weeks: June 22-26, June 29-July 3, July 6-10, and July 13-17. That's four straight weeks. That is going to hurt our manpower levels. To what extent we don't know yet. I wish there was good news I could put here, but the way things are going, there just isn't any. Thanks for logging on and checking our website.