Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Gettelfinger:   "This is about people"

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger comments on the tentative settlement agreement with Chrysler, Fiat and the U.S. Government

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger and Vice President General Holiefield meet the news media following a meeting of the UAW Chrysler Council on April 27 in Sterling Heights, Mich

"It got unanimous support from the delegates. So, we’re really looking forward to getting out in the field and telling this story. Because this is about people. It’s about changes to their lifestyles, but in addition to that, people sit around the dinner table at night and are worried about tomorrow, about all this uncertainty and this big cloud hanging over their heads, not knowing if they’re going to have a future.

"And we stepped up to the plate and we’ve done our part. We would call on all the other stakeholders to do the same thing and hopefully we can get this thing concluded.

"We’ve been though negotiations here with Chrysler, with Cerberus with Fiat with Daimler, and indirectly with the banks. It’s the most difficult and challenging situation that we’ve found ourselves in, probably in the history of our union.

"We have confidence when our membership sits down and takes a look at this agreement – and we’ve held nothing back, we want to be very transparent, and make sure people know what’s in there -- we’re very confident that they will ratify the agreement, because the alternative is bankruptcy, which we certainly don’t want to be a part of."