The UAW's strike against General Motors is in its ninth day as bargainers resumed meeting about 8 a.m. Tuesday.

About half a dozen key issues remain in play, but none appears to be more contentious than questions surrounding temporary workers.

In fact, union members said it was the top request among union members when surveyed by leadership last year.

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"The temp issue was one of the top requests union members made," said John Ryan Bishop, a GM UAW worker at Flint Assembly who started off as a temp in 2012 at GM's Orion Assembly plant. “It’s a really big deal. A lot of people who were hired in started as temps. They remember what it was like being a temp."

Autoworkers say temps, who are union members, often work side by side with permanent employees, doing the same work for half the pay and far fewer benefits. Agreeing to let automakers increase use of temps was a concession as the Detroit Three floundered heading into the Great Recession a decade ago.

Some temps work years and lack a clear path to being hired permanently. The union wants a process in place to help those workers become permanent and, while they are still temps, get pay and benefits that more closely match that of their permanent counterparts.

GM is holding firm to the status quo, people familiar with the talks tell the Free Press. Temps make up 7%-10% of GM's workforce over the course of a year, accounting for about 4,100 workers at the end of 2018. Ford had about 3,400 temps at year's end, and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles had 4,800, the UAW said.

GM and the UAW are holding strong to their positions. Observers say both sides likely underestimated the other's resolve at the outset of negotiations.

Don't screw up

On Sept. 15, about 46,000 GM UAW members went on strike nationwide after GM made an offer to the union two hours before the 2015 contract expired at midnight Sept. 14. The talks have progressed, albeit slowly.

Sources familiar with the talks say GM backed off on proposing that workers pay for more of their health care — initially proposing a 15% share rather than the autoworkers' current 3% — but wanted the UAW to bend on temporary workers. Accounts of the talks say neither side is budging much.

For those temporary workers caught in the middle, this issue keeps them up at night.

"In the end, there’s a likelihood we’ll get left behind as temps even though the union is trying to fight for us. My biggest hope is they at least find a path for us to become permanent employees," said Mat Bard, a materials driver at GM's Flint Assembly plant. "But it makes me kind of nervous as to what happens if they don’t give us that pathway."

Bard, 36, has worked as a temp at Flint Assembly for three months. When he started, Bishop, the former temp, gave Bard advice: “Don’t ever be late, don't ever take off and don't ever screw up. Just keep your head down and do your job," Bard recalled.

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Bard wants to be hired permanently. Until then, he works a second job at a beverage company in Flint. He gets one day off a week. He works with two other men at Flint Assembly, also temps with second jobs. One has been a GM temp for three years, Bard said.

"A lot of us want to leave our other jobs and do this, but without that path, it makes it hard to make that decision," said Bard.

Bishop said the idea that temps do not get to share in GM’s profits or get a 401(k) retirement option is “one of the most heartbreaking things.”

“As a temp you’re doing the same work as the other people and making half the wages and you don’t get profit sharing and you feel like you contributed just as much to this and you don’t reap the award,” said Bishop. He admits being on the other side of that now is awkward.

“You work next to someone and they know you just got $10,000 today and they didn’t,” Bishop said.

Waiting game

The temporary workers do not have the same job security or benefits as a permanent worker. For one, temporary workers have no sick days, no vacation days and no paid days off.

They get three days a year of an "excused" absence without a pay. That's an improvement from when Bishop, 35, worked as a temp for a year in 2012.

"I had a doctor’s appointment once and I had to talk to my supervisor and bring in a note just to get a day off. I’d been there a year then," said Bishop. "The first week I was there I saw five temps get walked out. They had us scared. You show up or you don’t have a job. That is how I felt.”

Here are some key differences between temporary workers, "in-progression" workers and permanent workers, according to the UAW:

Temporary workers' wages: $15-$19.

A newly hired permanent production worker, called "in progression," makes about $17 an hour, which can rise to $28 an hour after eight years.

A legacy worker, one hired before 2007, earns $28-$33 an hour.

A skilled trades worker, about 15% of the Detroit Three's workforce, is closer to $35 to $36 an hour. They often get heavy overtime.

Profit sharing: Temps get none. North American permanent hourly workers get, generally, $1,000 per $1 billion in GM annual pretax profit, or $10,800 last year.

Inferior health care coverage for temps, for which they pay more than permanent workers.

More out of pocket expenses, such as deductibles.

No supplemental pay during layoffs and plant retooling.

Less paid time off.

No retirement pay.

No seniority rights.

More:GM strike may stretch out awaiting UAW workers' vote on tentative deal

More:How GM's profit sharing offer to UAW workers missed the mark

No one appreciates those differences more than Bishop, who in 2013 was fortunate enough to get hired as GM was bringing in groups of temps and opening up some permanent jobs.

"Nothing changed in terms of my daily tasks, but everything changed in terms of my financial stability," said Bishop.

“It was just a big relief mentally," said Bishop. "When we were hired, they gave us a feeling we’d be hired permanently in 90 days. That comes and goes, then six months comes and goes … it’s really trying. You wonder how long you can hold out and that’s why I really feel for these guys who’ve been here three or four years waiting."

He's now making a little more than $29 an hour.

Pay issues

Permanent and temp UAW members do not pay a premium for health care, but the temps do pay a higher deductible, ranging from $300 up to $2,100 depending on the plan chosen and single or family coverage. It also does not offer the same benefits.

Keondris Howell, 40, has been a GM temp for three years. He qualified for Medicaid coverage because of the Flint water crisis and uses that more than the temp health care coverage he gets because he said that coverage does not meet his needs.

But Howell said the toughest part of being a temp has been no paid time off. It almost cost him his temp job two years ago when his 3-year-old son, Savion, was hospitalized in Cincinnati awaiting organ transplants.

"I was going back and forth between Flint and Cincinnati every other day," said Howell, who often skipped sleep to go straight to work. "I almost lost my job because I was late and had to call in a lot, but my union rep fought for me."

When his son died in April 2017, two days before his fourth birthday, Howell had two days of bereavement then had to return to work, he said.

"If I were permanent, I would have bereavement pay for when he passed," said Howell. "Financially, I could have had paid days off and I wouldn’t have had to worry about going back and forth on a five-hour drive every other day. I could have stayed there with my son.”

Dennis Laubernds came to see Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren on Sunday at GM's Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant. He carried a sign, reading “Temp Lives Matter,” that noted his position as a GM temporary worker since 2013. The St. Clair Shores man works at the Orion Assembly plant on the line.

Laubernds, 64, said before being laid off with the rest of his shift at Warren Transmission in 2017, he was making $21 per hour. When he came back to work this April at Orion, his pay was $15.78 per hour, the typical temp rate. He said GM is “making out like a fat cat” paying him at that rate.

Top issue

GM started hiring temps in 2006 to replace retiring union workers or those taking buyouts. The automaker needed to fill factory jobs. But as the automaker's finances faltered and it headed toward bankruptcy in 2009, the practice of hiring temporary workers proliferated.

In the UAW’s 2007 contract with GM, the UAW agreed to end the jobs bank, allowing GM to hire temporary workers to fill in for absences instead. The jobs banks paid permanent full-time union members to be on call to fill in at GM plants. Since that time, the use of temps has escalated.

For GM, temps allow the automaker flexibility to add jobs when needed and reduce costs by cutting those temps when the market slows or production demands have been met.

But the union says GM has had record profits since 2015, including $10.8 billion for 2018 and $11.9 billion in 2017. It has argued that UAW workers contribute to those profits and made big concessions in contracts going back to 2007 that have never been returned to the union.

Therefore, the temp issue is likely not something the UAW negotiators will back down on.

In fact, striking UAW members on the picket line at Lansing Grand River Assembly said Monday morning that the fate of temp workers is key as the negotiations continue.

Many temp workers may only end up working but a few days a week, and they can’t live on that kind of money, according to the UAW members.

“They’re working poor and they string them along,” said one member of UAW Local 652 in Lansing, who declined to give his name.

Ken Andrews, 62, also a member of UAW Local 652, said the temporary workers have it even harder than employees who start out at a lower pay based on the two-tiered wage system. A worker starting out at a lower wage can expect to see better wages each year on the job. But temporary workers have far less hope of steadily making more money, he said.

“It’s unfair to the temps that they don’t get rolled into permanent employment,” said Andrews, who was hired at GM in 1976. “In my opinion, that’s wrong.”

Contact Jamie L. LaReau: 313-222-2149 or jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter. Staff writers Susan Tompor and Eric D. Lawrence contributed to this article.