密歇根新闻广播 通用汽车遭到抗议

 

The UAW strike against General Motors is over. Union members voted 57% to 43% to ratify¹ a new four-year contract.

Vincent Gardner was manning his post on the picket² line Friday afternoon, a few hours before the contract ratification³ was officially announced. But everyone knew the strike was over.

Gardner has been working at Romulus Powertrain since 1997. He thinks the negotiations⁴ went as negotiations always do: with compromises. On both sides.

Is it a perfect contract? No, but GM got what they wanted, we pretty much got what we wanted, and that's the best we can hope for, he said.

Newly-hired workers will reach full wage parity⁵ with previously⁶ hired workers within four years. Before, it took eight.

GM also agreed to give temporary workers some paid time off and allow them to apply for open full-time⁷ jobs after three years as a temp. In return, the union agreed to let GM close three plants for good.

Gardner says some people had unreasonable⁸ expectations. They wanted everything back the way it was before GM's bankruptcy⁹, like cost of living raises. Unicorn¹⁰ stuff, he calls it.

I mean there are people here talking about getting back 90 days to full seniority, he said.

Stephanie Becker says she's disappointed. She was picketing¹¹ in front of GM's sales and distribution center in Romulus, even though she works at the powertrain plant down the street.

She was doing this so lower-paid coworkers at the sales center could leave to vote on the contract. A contract that will keep them at a lower wage.

They did away with our different wages, from assemblers to powertrain, but these people were left out of that and that's not good, Becker said.

The 40-day strike took a financial toll¹² on workers, some more than others. Some people went to food banks. Others canceled vacations. Dominic and Josie Richardson were just about to buy a house.

We were ready to close and everything and then the lender came back and said since we were on strike, they could not approve us, Dominic Richardson said.

So was this strike necessary? Was it worth it? Harley Shaiken is a labor¹³ expert at the University of California-Berkeley. Here's how he answers those questions:

I don't think a strike is ever inevitable¹⁴, but I suspect these gains that the UAW won would have been impossible absent a strike, and I think what the strike did was it focused both sides on what was achievable, he said.

For its part, GM may have gone into the negotiations hoping to reduce its labor costs. But Kristen Dziczek of the Center for Automotive Research says it had to reduce its overall costs. And that's what it achieved.

Closing three plants including Lordstown Assembly in Ohio, she says, will save the company billions.

They were running at 68% capacity utilization¹⁵, that is not sustainable over the long term, she said.

Now the remaining GM plants will run at about 80% of their capacity; a number much closer to competitors like Ford¹⁶, Fiat¹⁷ Chrysler, Toyota, and Honda.

The company is expected to start calling workers back to some plants almost immediately, and many will return on Monday.

The union has announced it will begin contract talks with Ford Motor Company next.

1 ratify   

v.批准，认可，追认

参考例句：

• The heads of two governments met to ratify the peace treaty.两国政府首脑会晤批准和平条约。
• The agreement have to be ratify by the board.该协议必须由董事会批准。

2 picket   

n.纠察队；警戒哨；v.设置纠察线；布置警卫

参考例句：

• They marched to the factory and formed a picket.他们向工厂前进,并组成了纠察队。
• Some of the union members did not want to picket.工会的一些会员不想担任罢工纠察员。

3 ratification   

n.批准，认可

参考例句：

• The treaty is awaiting ratification.条约正等待批准。
• The treaty is subject to ratification.此条约经批准后才能生效。

4 negotiations   

协商( negotiation的名词复数 )； 谈判； 完成（难事）； 通过

参考例句：

• negotiations for a durable peace 为持久和平而进行的谈判
• Negotiations have failed to establish any middle ground. 谈判未能达成任何妥协。

5 parity   

n.平价，等价，比价，对等

参考例句：

• The two currencies have now reached parity.这两种货币现已达到同等价值。
• Women have yet to achieve wage or occupational parity in many fields.女性在很多领域还没能争取到薪金、职位方面的平等。

6 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

7 full-time   

adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的

参考例句：

• A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
• I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作，我不知道她是如何对付的。

8 unreasonable   

adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的

参考例句：

• I know that they made the most unreasonable demands on you.我知道他们对你提出了最不合理的要求。
• They spend an unreasonable amount of money on clothes.他们花在衣服上的钱太多了。

9 bankruptcy   

n.破产；无偿付能力

参考例句：

• You will have to pull in if you want to escape bankruptcy.如果你想避免破产，就必须节省开支。
• His firm is just on thin ice of bankruptcy.他的商号正面临破产的危险。

10 unicorn   

n.(传说中的)独角兽

参考例句：

• The unicorn is an imaginary beast.独角兽是幻想出来的动物。
• I believe unicorn was once living in the world.我相信独角兽曾经生活在这个世界。

11 picketing   

[经] 罢工工人劝阻工人上班，工人纠察线

参考例句：

• mass picketing of the factory 罢工工人集体对工厂的封锁
• "And my chaps were also there to prevent picketing! “我的人也是防着女工们要拦厂！ 来自子夜部分

12 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

13 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

14 inevitable   

adj.不可避免的，必然发生的

参考例句：

• Mary was wearing her inevitable large hat.玛丽戴着她总是戴的那顶大帽子。
• The defeat had inevitable consequences for British policy.战败对英国政策不可避免地产生了影响。

15 utilization   

n.利用，效用

参考例句：

• Computer has found an increasingly wide utilization in all fields.电子计算机已越来越广泛地在各个领域得到应用。
• Modern forms of agricultural utilization,have completely refuted this assumption.现代农业利用形式，完全驳倒了这种想象。

16 Ford   

n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过

参考例句：

• They were guarding the bridge,so we forded the river.他们驻守在那座桥上，所以我们只能涉水过河。
• If you decide to ford a stream,be extremely careful.如果已决定要涉过小溪，必须极度小心。

17 fiat   

n.命令，法令，批准；vt.批准，颁布

参考例句：

• The opening of a market stall is governed by municipal fiat.开设市场摊位受市政法令管制。
• He has tried to impose solutions to the country's problems by fiat.他试图下令强行解决该国的问题。