Bruce Baumhower, United Auto Workers Local 12 president, said today that he felt “extremely betrayed” by comments attributed to Chrysler Group LLC CEO Sergio Marchionne, who suggested that production of the next-generation Jeep Wrangler may be moved out of Toledo.
Speaking at the Paris Auto Show, Mr. Marchionne said Chrysler is considering making the Wrangler with an aluminum unibody platform to lighten the vehicle and improve gas mileage.
The existing Wrangler assembly line at the Chrysler’s Toledo complex builds the vehicle with a body attached to a frame. The two production methods are incompatible, prompting the Chrysler CEO’s hint that production may go elsewhere.
Flanked by Jeep plant union officials, Mr. Baumhower said the Toledo workers had done everything Chrysler has asked in the past and that it could find a solution to this problem too, even if it meant finding local financing to build a new plant or new production equipment.
RELATED CONTENT: Fiat Chrysler Automobiles considering moving Jeep Wrangler production out of Toledo
"Today I cannot describe the shock and disappointment we had when we heard that in Paris that he made a comment that the next generation of Wrangler coming out in 2018 may not be built in Toledo,” Mr. Baumhower said. “He didn’t say it wouldn’t be, but he said there’s a chance that they may have to build it somewhere else because they’re going to go to an aluminum body.
“I don't care if they make it out of aluminium, if they make it out of steel. Whatever they want to make it out of, it’s got to be made in Toledo, Ohio,” he said. “We’ve earned that. We’re going to demand that. We expect nothing less than that."
Mr. Baumhower said union officials have spoken with city officials about coming together to find a solution for Chrysler that would ensure the Wrangler stays put.
"So if financing is a problem, we’ll find a solution to that too. If capacity is a problem, we’ll find a solution to that too,” he said.
UAW Jeep unit chairman Mark Epley said his phone was “going off all day” with calls from members angry about Mr. Marchionne’s comments. Workers already work mandatory 10-hour days, six days a week to meet high production quotas.
They are “ready for whatever it takes” to keep the Wrangler, he added.
Mr. Baumhower said the Chrysler CEO’s implication that Toledo could build another product to maintain employment levels will not suffice. Workers have built other products before, he said.
"But our bread and butter, the car that we invented here in Toledo, the one that’s made the Jeep name famous locally — and Sergio talks all the time about the Jeep nameplate globally — the one that’s done that is the Jeep Wrangler, the one that won World War II. And that’s the one that we invented and we want to keep here," the UAW official said.
First Published October 2, 2014, 11:23 p.m.
