{"id":23922,"date":"2010-05-24T09:53:31","date_gmt":"2010-05-24T14:53:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedetroitbureau.com\/?p=23922"},"modified":"2010-05-24T17:21:29","modified_gmt":"2010-05-24T22:21:29","slug":"detroit-will-be-adding-more-jobs-says-uaws-gettelfinger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/2010\/05\/detroit-will-be-adding-more-jobs-says-uaws-gettelfinger\/","title":{"rendered":"Detroit Adding More Jobs, Says UAW\u2019s Gettelfinger"},"content":{"rendered":"
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UAW President Ron Gettelfinger is taking a more proactive role in dealing with the Detroit Three.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

United Auto Workers Union President Ron Gettelfinger sees more new jobs in the U.S. auto industry as the nation begins its slow economic recovery and praises the current Chief Executives of the Domestic car and truck manufacturers.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the Birmingham Senior Mens Club the outgoing head of the UAW said the Big Three are focused on product and committed to growing manufacturing in America.\u00a0 His comments were surprisingly upbeat and positive about industry management \u2013 a sharp contrast with the many past rebukes delivered by the union.<\/p>\n

Regarding the domestic manufacturers, Gettelfinger called the Ford Motor Company team assembled by Chairman Bill Ford and President and CEO Allen Mullaly \u201csecond to none.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Your Industry Scorecard!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gettelfinger said General Motors CEO Ed Whittaker is progressive and committed to growth in the US.\u00a0 He cited the decision to build the Chevrolet Volt, an extended-range eletric vehicle, and the establishment of a factory to build batteries in Michigan as a major plus for the state and the nation.<\/p>\n

Gettlfinger, in turn, called Chrysler CEO Marchione very knowledgeable and focused on improving products.\u00a0 The UAW head cautioned his audience not to believe the current street talk that \u201cChrysler will disappear\u201d.\u00a0 He insisted that, \u201cThe Big Three are strong companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gettelfinger may have reason to be upbeat considering that each of the Detroit Three has announced plans to add new jobs.\u00a0 Just last week, Chrysler CEO Marchionne revealed plans to add a second shift \u2013 a move that will create more than 1,000 new blue-collar slots \u2013 at the Jefferson Avenue Assembly Plant, in Detroit, producing the new, 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee.<\/p>\n

Revealing that he just finished meeting with members of Congress on international trade, Gettelfinger said the US needs to negotiate agreements with Asian nations, like China, to deal with their currency manipulations, a problem that has made it difficult to compete in those markets with products made in America.<\/p>\n

Calling for \u201cfair\u201d trade, rather tha free trade, the UAW head noted that some of the Asian nations have to be convinced to open their own markets to imported products.\u00a0 He cited the sale of 750,000 Korean vehicles in the US in 2009, while no foreign manufacturer sold more than 10,000 vehicles in Korea that same year.<\/p>\n

The current push to \u201cgo green\u201d in the auto industry will continue to gain momentum, said Gettelfinger.\u00a0 He added that this will help generate jobs in this country and that will help fuel the American economic recovery.<\/p>\n

Noting that the UAW agreed to two-tier wages, he added, employers should not try to keep wages low.\u00a0 The UAW president, who retires at the end of this month, stressed, \u201cThe people in the new work force still have to make enough to be able to have a decent standard of living.\u201d<\/p>\n

While answering questions from the audience, Gettelfinger said incoming UAW President Bob King has years of experience in dealing with manufacturers and labor issues and has the ability to expand labor\u2019s outreach.<\/p>\n

Gettelfinger closed by saying, \u201cI hope he (King) will be the best UAW president ever.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

United Auto Workers Union President Ron Gettelfinger sees more new jobs in the U.S. auto industry as the nation begins its slow economic recovery and praises the current Chief Executives of the Domestic car and truck manufacturers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"make":[],"post-state":[],"category_old":[151],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23922"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23922"},{"taxonomy":"make","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/make?post=23922"},{"taxonomy":"post-state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post-state?post=23922"},{"taxonomy":"category_old","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedetroitbureau.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category_old?post=23922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}