SALINE, Mich. — Workers at a Faurecia factory here will vote on a tentative contract agreement this week after a strike briefly disrupted interior parts production.
The dispute centered on pay, benefits and working conditions in the 53-year-old plant, according to workers on the picket lines Friday, June 21.
Chris Richardson, a leader in the shipping department, said he works through his lunch break amid what he described as safety hazards.
"We have ponding going on the floor when it rains," he said. "It's slippery."
"We're using port-a-potties because the pipes are clogged," Richardson added. "The drinking water coming out of the fountain is brown."
A Faurecia spokeswoman declined to comment on the allegations, echoed in the "Fix the roof" chants from pickets along Michigan Avenue, about 10 miles south of Ann Arbor.
Such complaints occur "now and again when people get frustrated," said Art Schwartz, president of consulting firm Labor and Economics Associates in Ann Arbor. "But it's an uncommon occurrence."
"We want them to treat us like people, not a damn machine," said Joel Hall, a hi-lo driver for the plant. "We've got families. We want appreciation and more money."
Employees returned to work Friday afternoon after the midnight contract expiration. The plant produces instrument panels, center consoles and other interior parts for automakers including Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Tesla and Ford, which built the plant in 1966.
Neither Faurecia nor the UAW, which represents 1,900 union workers at the plant, would disclose terms of the agreement.
The factory was once owned by Ford spinoff Visteon. It was acquired by France's Faurecia, the world's ninth-largest supplier of original equipment parts, in 2012.
