General Motors Plants Struggling To Fill Temporary Positions
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General Motors is struggling to fill temporary part-time positions at its Flint Assembly plant in Michigan and Fort Wayne Assembly plant in Indiana – both of which build the automaker’s hugely popular and highly profitable full-size pickup trucks.
According to The Detroit Free Press, GM is looking to hire 450 temp workers at Flint Assembly and another 275 at Fort Wayne. However, UAW Local 595 Shop Chairman Eric Welter told the publication that he’s only been receiving around 22 to 25 applicants from a placement agency that GM uses to funnel workers to Flint Assembly. The automaker also held a job fair for the Fort Wayne Assembly plant last month, but it only resulted in around 60 new hires – a figure that UAW Local 2209 shop chairman Rich Letourneau says is not even close to the 275 bodies the plant needs “just to keep running.”
“We’re looking to hire temps like crazy, we just can’t get them,” LeTourneau told the Free Press this week. “Nobody wants to come to work here.”
2020 Silverado HD at Flint Assembly
A temporary part-time position at a GM assembly plant pays $16.67 an hour, with employees also receiving full paid healthcare and paid holidays after a 90-day work period. These temp employees can also be hired on as full-time workers after two years of service, with the last 12 months of that two-year period served as a full-time temp.
Both Welter and LeTourneau have suggested GM do away with its mandatory marijuana drug testing protocol in order to attract more workers. As of now, GM conducts on-site drug testing at job fairs, potentially turning away would-be candidates. Recreational and medical marijuana use is illegal in Indiana, although Michigan legalized recreational use back in 2018. Medical use of marijuana has been legal in Michigan since 2008.
“You’ve got this candidate pool that know they can smoke marijuana in the evening rather than having a drink,” Welter said. “It’s kind of silly to lose good workers. Marijuana doesn’t create the problems that opioids, cocaine and other drugs do.”
For now, GM hopes additional job fairs and new recruiting tactics on social media can help it find the temporary part-time workers it needs. The automaker will hold a two-day job fair at Flint Assembly next week, the Free Press reports, which will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Wednesday and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Thursday.
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Raise the starting pay to $20 /hour and watch what happens. Many restaurants have done this and were flooded with applicants.
$16.67/hr still has you below the federal poverty level after Federal and State Tax withholdings. We’re not talking about McDonald’s Employees either. We’re talking about people building the cars that you and I drive and depend on. And this is all GM is offering? Pathetic. If you want people to really be financially secure, you’ll need to set the pay at $30/hr.
And in 2 years you become full time, and 4 years after that, you’re at $32/hr. Then add bonus, overtime, shift differential, pension. The average full-time GM hourly worker gets paid $90k, and pays on average 3% of their healthcare costs.
Like other progressions in hard-to-fire union contracts (airline pilots, UPS, teachers), you grin and bear it for the first few years to prove that you’re competent and really want the job.
90k isn’t true
$90k is low balling. i averager $140k and know some that make $200k
@REGI T and how long have you worked for GM?
How about hiring full time workers instead. GM is trying to get cheap labor without paying benefits.
Partly,when things get slow they do not want to get stuck paying people 95% of there pay for them sit in a tavern or go fishing.
It’s not 95%
I guess the uaw got beat up a little what is it 90% now?
I have yet to make under 100
That’s the thing people aren’t willing to kiss ass and kill themselves for minimum wage anymore.
That’s a lie. It takes 8 years after 2 yrs permanent
Yea no one gets a pension
Pathetic that people feel entitled to higher wages just because. This is why we have inflation in the first place. Americans aren’t interested in being financially secure as the way the nation views credit tells all. Even people with so called careers. Okay so we set the pay to 30$. Those people will still be at the same place in life they are at presently. As landlords will raise prices. Communities where these plants are will become more expensive. The very cars that they build will increase in prices. People on this board will complain. People in different brackets will complain as they are making less money. It goes on and on. Then in 2023. Y’all will demand 32.77$ an hour with 30 hour working weeks just because someone said its cool. Then guaranteed basic incomes too. The present american mindset when it comes to earning ones keep is not what made this country great. People just want everything handed to them via government or entitlements. Last time I checked this country still has less red tap than most countries for one providing value aka starting a great company.
Factory jobs were never meant to be “careers.” As factories are beholden to people wanting to spend their money on goods.
Wages aren’t going up, that’s the problem. I was a temp at GM in 1999 and made over $15/hr. The temp pay went up $1 in 22 years and you think that’s too much. Incredible!!
I was also a temp in 2000 and the pay was 18.75 🤔 hired in permanent in 2k got in trades in 05
But yet in still you have autoworkers retiring with full pensions and benefits after they’re “auto careers”
No, you have inflation because politicians on the left create poverty and starvation.
do you have any idea of full paid health benefits cost?
30$ to start haha you’re delusional. The problem is how long it takes to get to full pay and benefits, if you hire in after the bankruptcy the path is different for you, people tend to forget UAW members didn’t get a raise for over 10 years
No thanks mate. That will just increase inflation and everyone still stays where they are at on the ladder. Then folks on this board will be complaining about lowercase gms higher prices. 16.67 and hour is better than most places and above the minimal wage in most places. I do not care if they said the minimal wage to 500$ an hour. It will work for a hot second until everything else goes up in price. As those folks will still be at the same levels.
For 16.67 an hour part time with a possibility of going full time after two years…such a deal….UAW oughta supply the marihuana…or maybe they do..cause somebodies smoking something
Illegal Aliens are paid more in cash than that number.
GM starves the temps out, while many ungrateful veteran employees look down upon them. Flint plant takes an average of 4 years to get hired in. Temps get 1 day a week sometimes. 32 hours is the max. At best, they bring home $400 weekly. Plus their scheduling varies so temps cannot find a part time job. This is corporate greed at its finest. Temps are better off entering a union trade with an apprenticeship. High school kids bring home more at fast food.
Scheduling doesn’t vary it’s Monday – Saturday what ever shift your on. No one takes 4 years to get hired and hasn’t in 3 years. I highly doubt any temp gets 32 hrs/wk if your gonna post on things post factual info.
$16.67 an hour doesn’t buy a new pickup. Many formerly well-paid American workers have been removed from the car-buying market. Not good.
This is how the union wanted it.
They will be able to buy the new Ford Maverick. With that logic I should be able to buy a new Bentley just because I work for that company. 16.67 an hour allows one to afford a lesser lowercase gm vehicle. As gms BOF real trucks are out of range for most people for any job just starting off.
WRONG ! I work with guys who have $600k houses and new vetts and escalades . majority of the comments posted do not come from people who work for gm. they are clueless.
REGI T is full of sht.
Buy a used 1
Told you so
I don’t want temps building my $60 grand truck !!!
Doesn’t help when the government is paying $600 a week unemployment.
Try $300 per week.
What’s even more pitiful, that’s more than what’s paid by many jobs throughout the country.
300 per week is just the enhanced Federal supplement. That’s on top of whatever the state psys out, which is usually between 250-500 per week.
Meaning 600-700 per week is not uncommon. And it’s way too high judging from the high unemployment rate and the high number of open positions.
It be federal portion needs to be scaled back. A lot of states have opted out of the federal supplement.
They’ve been building your vehicles for over 20 years with Temps and you’re non the wiser.
Perhaps you’d rather it be built in Mexico? Or China maybe?
They would never get built then. All automaker’s use this temp talk
Offer free dope so they will be happily stoned while they attempt to build vehicles.
A lot of states need to scale back the enhanced UI benefits. The total UI benefits in some states are pretty close to those state’s median wage. No one is taking a job to early $7 a week more than they would if they just stayed on unemployment.
Advertise these temporary jobs to college students and tech school students looking to make some coin this summer. Problem solved.
Wait a minute…
Fox News channel told us viewers that these GM union factory jobs were overpaid at $50 per hour, and the reason they’re leaving ‘merica… And we all know what they report is gospel.
$16.67 per hour, at GM? Fake news!
And the uaw asked for the drug test to be omitted, they can hire more that way
GM volunteered to omit the test, like most companies are doing
I worked a (89 er) in 1994 and was paid 14.00.
And I did 6 different jobs on the frame line. So 27 yrs they should be closer to 22 an hr. We touch 500 vehicle a shift
I worked as a temp for 16 months back in 07-08. Got nothing for it, not even a thank you. Maybe thats why you cant find temps anymore. You have used and abused people for years with false hope. No thanks.
Sorry about your experience. But remember that the country was in a major recession at that time due to the housing crisis. Not alot gm can do to sell vehicles during a recession like that.
Many of these states nationwide are beginning to let the clock run out on Unemployment Benefits and that eventually will cause a lot more people to get back into the line of work, along with the erosion of the Rent Evasion Protection measures. They won’t pass a bill on Equal Pay For Women or even raise the Minimum Wage to $15.00, so we can expect the same result on not changing the Starting Pay for most of these jobs which should be well above $15.00 an hour. Though this needs to happen, the sad truth is, nobody’s rushing to get it done.
The states are not letting the clock run out on unemployment they are screwing in scamming the people that get it out of the rest of what is owed to them because the states are trying to act like that they are going to stop receiving it from the government but they have already been given all of the benefits money to last until September so basically they are illegally screwing people out of their benefits by already passed law in building water parks for tax revenue like Montgomery ALABAMA is building now and like they attempted to build a new capital are state house building leith the Cares act money in President Trump found out and told them that no the heck they wasn’t but now the democrats are in office every body is back to there Creedy and Sorry ways .
“The price of the car will go up”
Then why is the terrain 30-40K?
By your logic, the Mexican worker gets $2/hr.
The terrain should cost around 4K
The price of new vehicles are already way over priced considering when it drives off the lot it automatically deapreasheeights big time not to mention there made with CHINESE parts so that would not make any good sense for the price of a new vehicle to go up and wages do need to go up so there will no longer be pharses poor are middle class every body will be rich and richer for the greater good of man kind.
The states are not letting the clock run out on unemployment they are screwing the people get it out of the rest of what is owed to them because the states are trying to act like that they are going to stop receiving it from the government but they have already been given all of the benefits money to last until September so basically they are illegally screwing people out of their benefits by already passed law in building water parks for tax revenue like Montgomery ALABAMA is building now and like they attempted to build a new capital are state house building leith the Cares act money in President Trump found out and told them that no the heck they wasn’t but now the democrats are in office every body is back to there Creedy and Sorry ways .
Stop all the free money. Shouldn’t be that way but people don’t have enough pride to work if they can get unemployment and other benefits. If we don’t bring good factory jobs back to America things will just continue to get worse. I know there are only so many really good jobs out there and pushing burgers or selling merchandise at a store aren’t going to build a solid base. We’re letting the government run our country into the ground and no political side to it. They have all done it with the public’s blessing or apathy. If you want better demand change. Call or write your representatives and vote your preferences. If you don’t like the candidates get loud and demand better.
Saying someone deserves 30 dollars an hour for a temporary line worker is rediculous. And yes I think CEO pay is way out of line in many cases but again we the people have allowed it as the stockholders have demanded profits without controlling executive pay.
question – do the temps pay UNION dues ?/ if so its a crap job – on your feet and less take homethan McDonalds.
I would love to work at the Fort Wayne GM Assembly plant. But working 2yrs as a temp and MAYBE get hired. Can’t do that. 90 days as a temp then straight in as a full time GM employee that I could do. By August 1st I’ll be up to 25.90hr where I’m at. Time and a half after 8hrs not 40hrs. Time and a half on Saturdays double time on Sundays all old school where I’m at. But I’d still rather work at GM. I spent 26yrs in UAW factory assembly work for Borg-Warner. The company shut our doors in Muncie, IN. Miss the work and the atmosphere. I can never retire because I lost my pension in the plant closing. Work at the GM plant in Fort Wayne is demanding. But, working there for me at least would be more rewarding enjoying what I was doing than where I’m at. Just can’t take the chance of never getting to full time or taking two years to get there.
Thats the thing, a lot of people dont understand that. The two years isnt a guarantee.
39 comments in and nobody mentions the very attractive line worker in the photo?
Do what Mr Ford did!
The issues with being a GM temp is any time the plant closes for what ever reason, be if shortage, strike or anything, your time starts over. If you started now and the plant closed in six months for a renovation and started up again after the renovation, your six months are gone. I dont think it is a finding work issues, but being a “temporary worker” issue. They can let you go for what ever reason. You are a temp, you arent the main line workers the union pretends to care about. With a lot of places raising the pay to 15, a $1 something different with no guaranteed work makes a difference. The article also doesnt say about all the temps that were laid off when the plant closed due to chip covid and had to start again. I know someone who was a temp for four years before gm hired him. Screw that.
That’s false
This isn’t fully true.
If GM would stop drug testing for weed, it would allow a greater pool to choose from.