Unions Expected To Push For Job Security, Outsourcing Limits

Expect organized labor to make job security, flexible work weeks, and restrictions on outsourcing the cornerstone of contract talks at high-profile negotiations this year. Those are shaping up as the major issues at Boeing Co. because of 48,000 planned layoffs over the next two years. The issues also are likely to surface at General Motors Corp., where the UAW hopes to increase job security by increasing restrictions on outsourcing. A possible trouble spot: GM's Saturn Corp. plant in Spring Hill, Tenn., where union members in late February booted union leadership that had forged the partnership that GM had hailed since 1986 as its way of doing business in the future. There has been enormous discontent among Saturn workers because of schedules that often included Saturday work without overtime pay, and the use of parts from other companies during other GM labor stoppages in 1998.