The newly elected president of the United Auto Workers Friday said the union was “headed for a big fight” with truck maker Navistar International Corp over the terms of a new labor contract.
“We will get behind workers in the fight coming up with Navistar,” UAW President Bob King said in his keynote speech to about 1,100 delegates at a union convention in Detroit.
A master contract covering several thousand Navistar workers represented by the UAW expires on Oct. 1.
King, who was elected to succeed Ron Gettelfinger as UAW president at the union meeting in Detroit this week, did not specify what he thought the major sticking points would be in the contract talks with Navistar.
But he charged that Navistar management with “trying to de-unionize” by shifting work to plants without union representation.
A Navistar spokesman said the two sides had not opened negotiations yet on a new contract. “We do our negotiating at the table, not through the media,” said Navistar spokesman Roy Wiley.
