What has happened since?

When the announcement of the Moraine Assemble Plant’s pending closure occurred, many employees were concerned about their options. Within a few days, they were presented with a closing agreement that set out those options. There were six.

1.    Voluntary retirement, if you were eligible under the current contract.

2.    Voluntary retirement, given special circumstances agreed upon by GM and the Union if you were not eligible to retire under the current contract.

3.    Pre-retirement, if you had more than 25 years but less than 30 years.

4.    Voluntary quit (The Buy-out)

5.    Transfer option to another GM/UAW plant. New union, years of seniority transferred.

6.    Standard lay-off with 1or 2 years of subpay and insurance.

There were meetings to explain all of this and the employees had about a month and a half to make their decisions. The GM tuition assistance program and the dependant scholarships were still available to those that chose any option other than 4.

Choices were made based on an individual’s situation and the promises given to these employees by the union and the company. GM had just received approximately $24 billion in bailout money to stave off bankruptcy, so the employees felt confident in the decisions they made. Then in June 2009, GM filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy anyway, under pressure from the White House and to receive an additional $30 billion dollars. This decision had a major impact on the closing contract with the Moraine Assembly Plant.

Interestingly, the former employees who had chosen Options 5 and 6 did not find out just how much it impacted them for six months. Many of these employees were in school, under a federal program known as TRA/TAA. They had based their ability to focus exclusively on school for two years on the fact they would receive a guaranteed income from GM. Starting the first week of January 2010, these employees saw a marked drop in their “guaranteed” income by more than $250 dollars per week. Ironically, while the union retirees were named in the Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the union itself and the laid-off employees were not named. The closing contract had been renegotiated without a vote of the employees who were considered to be still members because they had not retired or quit GM.