BY DAVE KURTZ, Evening Star
AUBURN — Union workers at Cooper Standard Automotive voted Tuesday to accept wage and benefit rollbacks that assure keeping their jobs.
A Coopertandard official confirmed the union’s vote in a message to Auburn Mayor Norm Yoder. About 390 union jobs were at stake, along with about 100 management jobs associated with the factory.
“Based on union membership approval today, of an offer to the company for wage and benefit relief, the Auburn manufacturing facility will remain open,” the message to the mayor said.
The message also accepted financial incentives offered to Cooper Standard by the city and the State of Indiana.
Cooper Standard employs 733 people at Auburn, the message said. Some 200 to 300 jobs are involved in technology and financial services not directly tied to the factory.
The company reportedly said it would keep the Auburn factory open if employees agreed to wage and benefit cuts of $2 per hour.
The union president said he would reveal the outcome of the vote at 1 p.m. today.
Cooper Standard officials declined to comment. They had been weighing a decision to close the Auburn factory or a similar NVH Division plant in El Dorado, Ark. Both make rubber-and-steel parts that control noise, vibration and harshness in automobiles.
“They came to us and gave us an ultimatum that said, ‘If you give us this, we will not shut you down. We will keep you open and shut down the other plant,’” said Ernest Leach, president of United Steelworkers of America Local 634L in Auburn.
Leach said managers promised union leaders that if Auburn workers approved the cutbacks, the company would not return to El Dorado workers and start a bidding war for the jobs.
Managers explained the situation to union leaders Wednesday and spoke to employees Friday and Monday. They asked the union to give an answer by today, Leach said.
“People are upset and they’re angry and they’re mad and they’re furious. We just settled a contract five months ago and then they come and do this to us,” Leach said Tuesday before the votes had been counted.
Cooper Standard’s Auburn workers earn an average wage of $17.90 per hour under the contract signed earlier this year, Leach said. He described that contract as “almost cost-neutral” and said it included concessions by the union.
As for the cutbacks approved Tuesday, “The way we’ve structured the deal, it shouldn’t be too bad for anybody, but it’s still a nasty, bitter pill,” Leach said.
The vote came at a time when Auburn’s manufacturing base is teetering. Auburn Foundry closed earlier this year, Eaton Corp. is weighing the future of its Auburn factory, and parent companies of two local plants are in bankruptcy.
“As you can tell, everybody else around us is closed down, and that’s what a lot of people are weighing in their decision, is where are you going to get a job?” Leach said Tuesday.
Even though union members accepted the cutbacks, “We were given no guarantees of this being enough to ensure our long-term viability,” Leach said.
“I will say, the state and city tried to step up. If they hadn’t, we wouldn’t be here,” Leach said.
Leach praised city officials for their efforts to convince Cooper-Standard to keep the Auburn factory open. He said the State of Indiana was slower in responding and did not match Arkansas’ offer to Cooper-Standard.
Indiana offered a grant of $100,000 to help pay for $200,000 in electrical service improvements at Cooper-Standard’s Auburn plant, Yoder said.
The improvements would save the company about $1 million over 10 years by using electricity more efficiently, Yoder said.
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.
The company had to weigh its labor costs against transportation costs, Yoder said.
“The one thing that Auburn has over El Dorado that you cannot change is geography,” because Auburn is closer to Cooper-Standard’s customers, the mayor said.
Leach said managers told union leaders that wage cuts are needed partly because of trade agreements that give other nations unfair advantages in labor costs and environmental concerns.
“This local feels betrayed, not only by our political leadership, but by the managerial leadership,” Leach said.
“What’s mostly in people’s thoughts is: ‘How did we get here? What has changed in our country so much ... and who got us here?’”
Leach said he has worked at Cooper Standard in Auburn for 17 years.
“I’ve been through the ups and downs,” he said, “and it’s never been this bad.”
© 2005 KPC Media Group, Inc.