DETROIT – General Motors' worker Adarrey "Ace" Humphrey was blindsided Sunday. That's when his life changed.

Humphrey, 27, has been a part-time temporary worker at GM's Flint Assembly in Michigan for the last three years. On Sunday morning, he and about 250 of his co-workers crowded into UAW Local 598's union hall. Most thought they were there for a routine meeting.

But when the local's president stepped to the mic, the room listened in awed silence.

"He said, 'As of tomorrow, you guys are full-time seniority employees of GM,' " Humphrey said. "There was a gasp in the room for a few seconds. Some of us thought he misspoke. Then, we had to say, 'No, we heard him right!' It was amazing.”

On Monday, GM made about 930 temporary workers permanent full-time employees at 30 of its 52 UAW-represented facilities in the United States. There are more to come in the months ahead, it said.

Ford Motor Co. also moved 592 temps to permanent full-time on Monday, the UAW said, and will do more conversions of temps next month. But Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is still working to implement its temporary worker conversions, said the UAW.

The action is in keeping with the terms struck in the 2019 four-year UAW contract that GM union members ratified in October after a 40-day nationwide strike. In it, temporary workers who gain at least three years of service will convert to permanent status starting this year. Their new wages are $21 to $24 an hour. Ford and FCA union members ratified their new contracts with similar terms.

Still, thousands remain temporary workers at GM facilities and their chance of reaching permanent status is long and uncertain.

Conversations continue

The UAW said it wants more temps permanently hired.

“UAW members sacrificed during our 40-day strike to create a defined path for temporary workers to seniority members in the 2019 National Agreement," Terry Dittes, UAW vice president General Motors, told the Free Press in an email. "We remain in conversations with General Motors at several locations where we believe additional members should be moved to seniority status under the agreement."

This move is a good start, said Dittes, but the union will be "vigilant to make sure that all hardworking temporary employees see their advancement to seniority status.”

Terry Dittes, vice president of the UAW-GM department, announces a national GM worker strike during a press conference at the Marriott Renaissance Hotel, in Detroit, Sunday Sept. 15, 2019. More

About 50 temps at GM's Marion Metal Center in Indiana were let go recently when the pickup program they were hired to work on ended. GM said it warned the workers in early December that they would be released because the production of previous-generation pickup parts ended the week of Dec. 8. GM warned the employees of the production timeline last January, and it has repeated that regularly, a GM spokesman said.

There are the newly hired temps, too, who have a long way to go to reach the three-year seniority mark. They also face contract pitfalls such as being laid off for too long, thereby derailing whatever seniority they've accrued.

Mat Bard is a temporary worker at Flint Assembly, where he's worked since May 29. Bard is one of those temps who faces a long path to permanency. He said he will "hang in there," but laments, "I don’t think anything is going to change real soon for me. My chances of being hired are pretty low.”

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More to come

GM confirmed that it made more than 900 GM temporary hourly employees regular full-time employees and said there will be more hiring at more locations and additional opportunities to attain permanent full-time status later this year.

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