Axle strike: Last 2 WNY plants in doubt

Official confirmation is lacking, but fear is rising that an end to the lengthy strike of American Axle & Manufacturing & Holdings Inc. will mean closing the company's Tonawanda Forge plant and losing 400 jobs.

That prospect also dims the future of the 110-job Cheektowaga machining operation that services the forge plant.

Hourly workers at the local facilities joined 3,140 other UAW members at three American Axle facilities in Michigan in a Feb. 26 walkout over wages and benefits.

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Negotiators for the company and the United Auto Workers continued to meet Friday and talks were expected to be extended through the weekend, company spokeswoman Renee Rogers said.

"It's a process and it is making progress," she said.

"With regard to the (possible closing of Tonawanda Forge), at this point all of what you have been reading is rumor and speculation. There has been nothing presented to (union) membership so we are not going to comment on any of that stuff that at this point is just speculation," she said.

Rogers also declined to discuss the Cheektowaga facility's future, "since it relates to Tonawanda."

The operation opened in 1999 to perform machining work on forgings produced at the Tonawanda Forge plant that previously was done by out-of-state suppliers.

At the time, American Axle Chairman and CEO Richard Dauch called local and regional UAW leaders "our partners all along in developing a solid business case for performing these machining operations in-house."

The wages agreed upon for machine workers were comparable with other union wages in the machining industry, union leaders stated.

The Detroit Free Press reported on May 1 that the framework of a potential deal with the UAW to settle the two-month-long strike may have been established. Talks are taking place in Detroit.

Included in the arrangement, the newspaper said, are buyouts, buy-downs in exchange for lower wages and the closing of at least two plants -- the Tonawanda facility and a forge plant in Detroit.

There was no mention of the Cheektowaga operation.

"A settlement potentially would shed American Axle's national UAW contract, replacing it with individual agreements for the surviving plants, said people briefed on the talks," the newspaper reported.

"Wages at the company's U.S. axle operations are shaping up to be $17 an hour for production workers, $14 an hour for nonproduction workers and $25.50 for skilled trades workers, these people said," the newspaper reported.

Before the strike, workers at American Axle were making about $28 an hour, and skilled workers were making more than $30 an hour.

There was no confirmation of the newspaper report from the company or union.

In December 2007, American Axle idled operations at Buffalo plant, eliminating about 500 jobs.