Freightliner Demands Worker Concessions
America’s largest heavy-duty truck maker is asking workers for wage and benefit concessions to help prevent plant closures in its headquarters city and preserve hundreds of jobs.Freightliner LLC, based in Portland, Ore., and a unit of Germany’s DaimlerChrysler, is also reportedly seeking help from state and local governments. Officials from those agencies confirmed that the company was holding talks with them about its plans.
Union sources said Freightliner officials told the union that compensation cuts are needed to make the troubled company’s truck assembly plant in
ortland competitive with its cheaper Cleveland, N.C., facility, which also builds Class 8 trucks.