As the Detroit International Auto Show opens January 9 and PR glitz is sprinkled everywhere, auto workers will be demonstrating against two-tier wages and the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement. We’ll say what auto workers and the whole economy need is a strong union, and retooled plants that can put the unemployed back to work building mass transit and renewable energy technology.
Days before, United Auto Workers President Bob King vowed that by the end of the year, the union would organize workers at one of the German- or Asian-owned factories in the U.S., the “transplants.”
Given our union’s track record of huge concessions to the Big Three, and its failure to ever win elections at Toyota, Nissan, Mercedes-Benz, or Honda, what’s new this time around? King outlined a new strategy: spend $60 million on a campaign to convince the companies to sign a set of 11 principles that would guarantee democratic elections.
The preamble to these principles commits the UAW to “innovation, flexibility, lean manufacturing, world best quality and continuous cost improvement” as well as “shared goals and a common mission” with employers. “We are moving on a path that no longer presumes an adversarial work environment,” the document announces. The principles say that neither employer nor union should intimidate workers, criticize each other, or promise wage increases.
There’s not a big incentive for non-union auto workers to join a union that’s just negotiated huge wage cuts and disdains “strict work rules, narrow job classifications or complicated contract rules”—the kind of things that emerge when workers have a chance to make life on an assembly line bearable.
So is the idea to convince the employers they’d be better off with a union? The UAW pledges “shared responsibility for quality, innovation, flexibility and value.” They sure aren’t saying much about what UAW jobs have become lately.
For Nick Waun, who worked at GM’s Lake Orion, Michigan, plant, the world was turned upside down when the UAW signed an agreement with management that only 60 percent of the plant’s workforce would remain at first-tier wages and benefits, about $28 an hour. Without being allowed to vote on this contract, Waun was offered three options: transferring 250 miles to the GM plant at Lordstown, Ohio, taking a 50 percent pay cut, or remaining on layoff.
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“The union’s cooperation with the company has resulted in a scheme where the locals compete for product,” Waun says now. “Those with the lowest labor costs win. Traditional workers have become casualties. Temporary and lower-seniority workers are given priority for scarce jobs. I ended up in the group of workers caught in the middle. We have become high-wage refugees, unwanted by both the union and company.”
King has said that $14-15 an hour is the necessary auto worker wage if corporations are to maintain their profitability. New workers find themselves trapped, unable to think about buying a home or a new car or taking college classes. Those with families find they are eligible for food stamps. And those still at the higher wage see how the tiers undermine conditions on the shop floor. The fact that some of the new hires are our children makes it all the more painful.
In talking to temporary GM workers, hired through an agency, you can sense their frustration. They don’t know if today is their last workday for a while, or if laid off, whether they’ll be recalled. Wondering how to meet these challenges and maintain a sense of worth and dignity in the workplace is the new norm.
Contract negotiations with the Big Three automakers will begin this summer. Resolutions opposing two-tier wages are being voted on in UAW locals this month and submitted to the spring bargaining convention. So far all we’ve heard from King about bargaining strategy is based on hitching our wages to a profitability formula. That doesn’t address the concessions we’ve already made—cutting retiree health benefits, cutting wages in half for second-tier workers, shaky 401ks instead of pensions for new hires, thousands of dollars of increases in health care costs.
The union is signing up for management’s program to pit workers against each other. Increased competition is forcing workers in one plant to bid against those in another. King endorsed the U.S. Korea Free Trade Agreement, which will intensify capital flight to the lower-wage country. If the agreement is passed, the Economic Policy Institute predicts the loss of 159,000 U.S. jobs within seven years, while the Korean Metal Workers Union reports it will lead to the use of even more temps in Korean plants.
The Big Three pay upper-level management big bucks—Ford paid its CEO $17.9 million in 2009—but they don’t have a clue about manufacturing needs in the 21st century. We’ve got a better idea: quit attacking the workforce and retool to produce for a green economy.
Dianne Feeley is a retired member of UAW Local 22 in Detroit and Jeanne Rascoe belongs to UAW Local 23 in Indianapolis. They invite supporters to join the Auto Show demonstration Sunday, January 9, 1:30-3 pm, across from Cobo Hall in downtown Detroit.
It would be great to end two tier so those us that aren't retired don't spend our entire working lives to pay for the benefits of the already retired like the author. Two tier for retirement and wages sucks!!!! Just ban the transplants and imports and we'll all be better off.
