BY DAVE KURTZ, Evening Star
UBURN — Union members agreed to “a pretty complicated deal” to keep Cooper Standard Automotive’s factory in Auburn open, a union leader said Wednesday.
Employees voted Tuesday to take reductions in pay and benefits worth $2 per hour. In return, Cooper Standard Automotive decided to close a factory in El Dorado, Ark., instead of Auburn’s factory.
The decision saved about 390 union workers’ jobs in Auburn, plus about 100 management jobs associated with the Auburn factory.
“It was a tough vote for the people,” said Ernest Leach, president of United Steelworkers of America Local 634L, which represents Cooper Standard workers.
Leach declined to release the vote totals for and against changing the union’s contract.
A company official declined to be interviewed Wednesday, promising a statement later.
Leach described five main features of the union’s pay and benefit reductions:
• Starting in January, employees will see a wage reduction of 9 cents per hour. Leach said the factory’s average wage is $17.96 per hour.
• Employees gave up a 30-cents-per-hour raise scheduled for 2007. They already were receiving no raises in 2005 and 2006.
• The standard wage for newly hired employees will drop to $10.50 per hour. It had been negotiated at $12 in a new contract last spring.
• Employees will not receive a $1 multiplier for pensions in July 2007. Leach said that will affect pension levels for the rest of the workers’ careers.
• A reduction in health benefits will account for a significant portion of the cutbacks, but Leach did not offer details.
Closing the Arkansas factory will transfer up to 94 jobs to Auburn, Leach said, but the real gain could be only about 30 jobs. Leach said the company was discussing layoffs of about 60 people at Auburn in the future. Instead of being laid off, those Auburn employees would take jobs moved from Arkansas.
Leach said the Arkansas plant had 330 to 350 union workers, with 112 on layoffs. The Auburn factory does not have anyone laid off.
Both the Auburn and Arkansas plants make rubber-and-steel parts that control noise, vibration and harshness in automobiles.
Leach said the Arkansas plant runs with lower labor costs, but Cooper Standard knew that its Auburn workers offered other advantages.
“We’ve never missed a shipment over here. Our parts per million for quality is just unbelievable. This is a world-class plant over here,” he said.
Arkansas workers who will lose their jobs also belong to the United Steelworkers of America.
“That’s why it’s such a bitter pill to swallow,” Leach said. He recently had “long, heart-to-heart talks” with the union president in Arkansas, he said.
“I’m relieved, yet hurt,” Leach said of the developments at Cooper Standard. The company had announced two months ago that it would close either its Auburn or Arkansas factory.
“This has been one heck of a year for this local. The decision to do this wasn’t made easily or lightly,” Leach said of approving the wage and benefit cuts.
The decision did come in a hurry, however. Leach said company officials asked union leaders for the wage and benefit concessions Oct. 5 and requested an answer within seven days.
“It’s something that is going to take a while for the people to get over,” Leach said. “Now, we’ve just got to go forward, try to ensure our economic viability, do the things to make this company irreplaceable, so we don’t have to go through this anymore.”
Auburn city officials played a major role in keeping the Auburn factory open, Leach said.
“I really do commend the city of Auburn. They really did step up to the plate and do what needed to be done. If it wasn’t for that, we wouldn’t be here right now,” Leach said.
In a message sent Tuesday to Auburn Mayor Norm Yoder, Cooper Standard accepted financial incentives offered by the city and the State of Indiana.
Indiana offered a grant of $100,000 to help pay for $200,000 in electrical service improvements at Cooper Standard’s Auburn plant, said Yoder.
Property tax phase-ins would be available for any new equipment or equipment that Cooper Standard moved from Arkansas to Indiana, Yoder said. The state also offered money for employee training.
New York-based investors bought Cooper Standard Automotive last year from Cooper Tire & Rubber Co. of Findlay, Ohio. The newly independent Cooper Standard Automotive employs about 11,000 people in 47 factories.
Auburn’s plant opened in 1960 as a division of Cooper Tire.
In its message to Yoder, Cooper Standard said it employs 733 people in Auburn. The total includes workers who handle information technology and financial services for the entire company.
Cooper Standard had considered moving the technology and financial employees last year. The company decided to keep them in Auburn when city government created a broadband network to supply high-quality Internet service.
© 2005 KPC Media Group, Inc.