Chrysler asks UAW for a Four 10-hour Workdays
In order to reduce travel and energy expense, Chrysler LLC is on negotiating terms with United Auto Workers Union, to put all the factory employees on four-working days with ten hour shifts from a five, eight hour days shift.
The manufacturing chief of the company, Frank Ewasyshyn said that this new curriculum would certainly affect most of its plants excluding those who are already involved in overtime, like Belvidere assembly in Illinois and Sterling Heights assembly in suburban Detroit. “The remaining plants likely would qualify,” Ewasyshyn confirmed the statement at the Management Briefing Seminars.
Ewasyshyn further said the schedule is very analogous to what some of the other government bodies are adopting to reduce their energy and travel expense. They are also going for a four-day 10 hour schedule rather than implementing five eight-hour working days.
To approve the new schedule for the employees, Ewasyshyn said Chrysler is having talks with the international UAW and the locals who represent the affected plants. It reduces costs for workers and "reduces our operating costs," Ewasyshyn said.
Chrysler is further testing this new schedule in a parts distribution center in Atlanta.
Ewasyshyn said that he would not be able to elaborate on specific savings, but he said it was less than 10 million dollars annually
