Autoworkers Go Quietly into the Bad Night
Never have so many American, unionized autoworkers given up so much with so little of a fight.
During contract negotiations where the United Auto Workers faced declining wages for new members and the threat of plant closings, brief, token strikes were held at both General Motors and Chrysler before workers agreed to the terms of new contracts.
The union at Ford, the most economically broken of the Big Three, didn't even bother with a strike, before the UAW agreed to a tentative agreement. (The pact must now be ratified by Ford's local unions.)
The contracts are reportedly very similar for all the nearly 540,000 members of the UAW. Besides wage reductions and the loss of jobs, all three auto giants have also passed along their commitment to provide retiree health benefits to the union leadership. Trusts will be created to handle the benefits liabilities, and it's too early to tell if the UAW will do a better job managing those benefits.
What is clear is that a once-dominant union is crumbling under the pressure of real and perceived challenges.
Management at the automakers has gotten their lunches eaten by foreign car companies who came up with automobiles American consumers would rather buy.
Auto companies scrambled to move production to third world nations and southern, less union friendly U.S. states, replacing more costly Midwestern and northeastern assembly workers.
And more conciliatory leaders such as the present UAW chief Ron Gettelfinger have since replaced the take-no-prisoners type union bosses of days gone by, like the late Stephen Yokich.
"I don't think Yokich could have done what Gettelfinger did," auto analysts David Cole with the Center for Automotive Research told me recently. "He didn't have the personality or relationships to allow him to do this. He was more confrontational."
The goings on in today's labor-management power struggle is like a wacky dream you wake up from and realize it's not a dream at all.
Just days after Chrysler workers narrowly approved the new contract, the company announced it was cutting up to 12,000 jobs across the country.
The news was a slap in the face for the men and women on the assembly line, but they had little recourse.
Chrysler CEO Robert Nardelli sees the concessions made by the union as "revolutionary" and analysts, of course, tout the cutbacks in jobs and wages and healthcare benefits, as a boon for the three automakers bottom lines. Cutting labor costs as all costs is the mantra among all three auto giant CEOs. (By the way, Nardelli was pushed out of Home Depot because the company faced financial problems, and he received a hefty $210 million gold parachute for his troubles.)
Did the union give up too much?
Cole doesn't think so. "If they didn't do what they did it would have killed at least one of the companies," he surmises. "The old way is not going to work anymore."
Alas, the UAW is no longer the face of the labor movement in the United States. It doesn't even rank among the top ten U.S. unions. (The largest union is the National Education Association with nearly 2.8 million members, and the Service Employees International Union is No.2 with about 1.6 million members, according to BNA, a specialized news and information publisher.)
Manufacturing is all but dying out in this country, as service sector jobs emerge as the new frontier for labor organizers. And most of those jobs pay nowhere near what manufacturing jobs have traditionally paid.
Lately I've heard quite a few people pontificate about how much money autoworkers make as a way to justify why their ranks have been decimated. I don't know about you guys, but $28 an hour is not a lot of money in this day and age, especially for a back-breaking, often monotonous job like that of an auto worker.
I asked Gary Chaison, professor of Industrial Relations at Clark University whether the decline of the UAW was a bad thing?
"What's bad, or really I should sad, about the UAW's declining influence is their ability to protect past negotiated standards, i.e., high wages, strong job security, great health care benefits and pensions, from the decline of the American auto makers. So I guess my point is that the decline of the autoworkers unions also signals the decline of auto production and good paying manufacturing jobs in America, and the full impact of globalization on American manufacturing."
Many people don't really care if the auto union fades to black. But most of us do care if our TV shows fade to black because Hollywood writers walk off the job.
I suppose if we could outsource the writing of "CSI" to a third world nation, no one would care about the writers' union either.
Follow Eve Tahmincioglu on Twitter: www.twitter.com/careerdiva
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Why are there still plenty of manufacturing companies in the U.S. with top management and motivated employees who earn plenty to live on and still can compete? The right product mix, skilled managers and motivated staff can make any company thrive, anywhere. When a company folds its tent and moves to China or Mexico, the management is capitulating to its lack of skill, imagination and cunning. Switzerland is heavily industrialized and pays top wages. Take a look at their management practices and collegial style, together with their top-flight products, and you'll see what I mean.
I work in an American factory and make a decent living although I'm far from wealthy. A couple of years ago I bought an American made truck and suprise...within the first 6 months it had two problems (that have gone unfixed at the dealership). I've owned several American made and Japanese vehicles including cars, trucks and motorcycles. The Japanese stuff always seems more reliable. This is ESPECIALLY true of motorcycles.
Long story short, I work in a factory and try to support other factories and businesses in the US. The automotive industry makes it hard. I believe the average American wants to support our businesses but how often can the consumer take a beating buying inferior products before changing brands? If I made what my wife (a teacher) makes I don't think I could justify risking my pay on another American made vehicle. The quality isn't consistant enough.
I would love to see these corporate CEO's have to work for a living, like the rest of us. It would be fun to watch. It's like I told a supervisor at Ford, this place will run without you, it won't without us. Two hundred million dollars to destroy a company, what a backwards ideology of capitalism.
Oh, and one other thing. Don't forget about having to work on sixty-five to one-hundred & twenty "jobs" an hour, average, with multiple functions required on each job. You don't know work until you've been "on the line" in 105 degree heat with people passing out from heat exhaustion, (no A/C) and the company is nice enough to provide gatorade, sometimes, let alone access to a water fountain. No-one should disparage an autoworker until they have at least spent some time doing the job.
I believe most people do not understand what autoworkers have to go through. Right now, there is a factory, that I used to work at, that the people are required to work fifty hours a week minimum. And let's not forget about the ability of the company to force workers to work every-other saturday, meaning, six days off a month, with union leadership. And that is not to say that you will not have to work more, the company just has to decide if they "need" you to work, seven days a week, is does not matter, the union can do nothing about it, sorry, "enjoy" the over-time. It's happened to me, yes, the money is good, but, the divorce rate isn't.
I see some disparaging comments, and think to myself, do not judge someone until you have walked in their shoes (autoworkers). I recently took a buyout from Ford, and I can tell you, the work is backbreaking, in some cases, literally. I worked for Ford for almost eight years, and have seen so much that would amaze and disgust people. Companies do not care, period. They do not care about the consumer, or the worker. Unions are the only ones who have fought, not just for union workers, but for all Americans. Do you like the concept of a forty hour week? How about pensions and healthcare? How about a minimum wage? Thank the union people who have literally died trying to secure these "benefits" that most people take for granted. The unions power has diminished greatly, now-adays they only have any authority over dangerous work practices. That's pretty much it, unless it is contract time. And I am talking at the factory, not nationally. I have watched as management has pushed a man who just had a heart-attack off of the line, so the line could be restarted. This was literally seconds after he fell, and medical had not arrived yet. They responded beautifully, (medical) but could not save him. And a friend of mine, a volunteer firefighter, got written-up for stopping the line, and leaving his job to perform CPR. Don't put down these Americans, they are the ones holding the corporations at bay, well, at least until all the republi-cons were bought and paid for.
sorry to butt back in. Has anyone thought about why the automakers are in this trouble? I know that GM was offered to get in on toyota's hybrid but found it to be economically unnecessary. Guess they learned nothing from the '70s gas shortage, and now it's the lower class that has the yet again foot the bill. Yeah, I'm really crying for them.
Why the haters out there? Instead of flaming auto workers for making "so much" why isn't the question, Why doesn't everyone else make that much also? Answer: corporate greed. See how good they are at deflecting blame for enslaving the lower class? Rather than be angry as substandard pay for the majority of americans, people are mad at someone making good money to support their families.
Time to take a good look folks. Such unexamined comments are just helping us all race to the bottom.
Grow up, open your eyes and STOP THE HATING.
P.S. thank you for mentioning the writer's strike. I support them fully but I do think it's ridiculous that americans care about missing tv more than decent bluecollar jobs.
Sounds like big bonus time for the board of directors and CEO. Mission Accomplished.
The fact that the job is monotonous and back-breaking is precisely why it's not worth 28/hour (to start) plus insane benefits.
More cars are actually being bought today that one, two, and five years ago -- it is just that more and more of them are non-union made cars. Unions have to give up the us v them attitude and work with the company to build cars that give consumers the best quality and value.
When you hire people to a plant because they know someone or are related to someone, you don't get the best people.
Doesn't anyone get it! It's all playing out as it has been designed. Send decent paying jobs, manufacturing jobs offshore. Jobs that typically have union affiliation. Weaken the unionized membership that remains until it no longer resembles its' former self. Keep the old rules in place for forming new unions were there are none and then the unions are dead and a thing of the past. The vast majority of whats left as organized labor in this country are public sector unions and believe me THEY are coming for them next.
This crap all began or was accelerated during the Reagan years. Good old Ronnie another
stooge of the corporate world.
When US union made cars have 2-3x the costs (healthcare, retirement, etc...) than non-US autos, waht is the game plan for competing? When a US built union car has about $1000 more of these costs built in, they are starting with a huge disadvantage.
Also, Yahoo had a article on its homepage regarding $40,000 being somewhere close to the national average for family income; $28/hour is closer to $58,000.
I totally agree that it is disgusting the multiple that management (higher and middle) make versus their companies' average employee, but that is a different topic.
Now that Chrysler has started the ball rolling, look for a lot more industry to turn traitor to the employees who put them where they are today. What a concept! Make your money off the backs of the people who make your money! Isn't it wonderful that Chrysler had a resource to exploit to make a profit for the company/CEOs? The Human resource! Too bad the company didn't spend any resources on making a product that would actually sell....
Thanks for actually bringing up UAW autoworkers. It seems to me that the only union the people here on HuffPo care about is the writers union. Compare the number of stories on their strike vs. strikes against GM and Chrysler.
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