CAW chief pans Chrysler plan

Bradford Wernle | Automotive News / April 23, 2007 - 1:00 aCanadian Auto Workers President Buzz Hargrove has rejected a plan by a group of UAW Chrysler group employees to buy the company under an employee stock ownership plan.

"We're not interested," Hargrove told Automotive News in a telephone interview Friday. "The workers already have everything invested in that company today, including their jobs and their pensions." To invest further by owning shares would not be prudent, he added. Hargrove said he had not seen the plan.

A group of Ohio Chrysler employees calling themselves the DaimlerChrysler Employee Buyout Committee sent a letter to DaimlerChrysler Chairman Dieter Zetsche on April 9 proposing the plan. The letter was signed by Michelle Mauder, an employee at Chrysler's Toledo Supplier Park in Ohio, where the Jeep Wrangler is made.

UAW spokesman Roger Kerson could not be reached for comment.