Headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan, Borg Warner, an automotive parts company whose annual revenue for 2023 was $14,198B, a 12.37% increase from 2022, has taken the role of backing American workers into a corner. In January 2023, the Company announced that it would be closing part of its manufacturing plants at its Warren Road campus near the Town of Lansing and Ithaca border. The closure affects its valvetrain production, as well as a technical center, while the chain production remains operational. Approximately 300 American workers affected, out of the near 1,500 American workers employed. AMERICAN WORKERS is being stressed as work is not disappearing...it is being sent to Mexico. Borg Warner is currently the third-largest employer in Tompkins County, behind Cornell University and Ithaca College. The UAW just came out of a successful labor strike at Cornell University which lasted close to two weeks, covering over a thousand members.
Borg Warner, through contentious negotiations, deems that market-driven adjustments in adaptation to its cost structure, which include restructuring, closure, and consolidation, are more important to the bottom of their balance sheet rather than respecting the workforce that helps to create the over 14 billion dollars in revenue.
A slap in the face, Last Best and Final Offer was given to Teamster Local 317 members, which includes a vast erosion of standards and current conditions. Bargaining Unit members will be voting on the offer throughout the day on Friday, September 6th 2024. The current Collective Bargaining Agreement expires on Sunday, September 8th, 2024 at midnight. The Bargaining Unit has overwhelmingly authorized a strike-vote.
Updates will follow as events unfold.