For the rivetheads, something good is happening for them in hollowed-out Flint and Detroit.
According to the Detroit Free Press:
On Monday, GM made about 930 temporary workers permanent full-time employees at 30 of its 52 UAW-represented facilities in the United States. There are more to come in the months ahead, it said.
Union documents show that at Flint, where GM builds its heavy-duty pickups, 255 temps became permanent. At Lansing Delta Township, where GM builds its midsize SUVS, it hired 103 temps. At GM’s smaller plants such as Bedford Casting Operations in Indiana, 17 temps are now permanent.
Ford Motor Co. also moved 592 temps to permanent full-time on Monday, the UAW said, and will do more conversions of temps next month. But Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is still working to implement its temporary worker conversions, said the UAW.
That’s nearly a thousand people, and they said the good news was a big surprise. Instead of a low temp salary and abbreviated benefits, along with the uncertainty of wondering if they’ll be laid off tomorrow – temp workers are always first to be shed – they’ve now got a place. They can work. They can plan. They can save. They’ve joined the real world, the Trump economy, the good times, the Obama gig economy with them as its most dispensible and desperate cogs — is gone.