When Delphi Corporation filed Chapter 11 on October 8, the world’s second-largest auto parts maker was crystal clear about its goals. CEO Steve Miller said he needed to cut wages by 63 percent, from about $26 to $10 or $12, and to get workers to pay 27 percent of their health care.
Employers in heavily unionized U.S. industries are turning to bankruptcy courts as a strategy for gutting union contracts. Their goal: to impose layoffs and givebacks even deeper than those workers made in the concessions of the early 1980s . . . .
Some folks think Steve Miller, Delphi’s new CEO, is a straight shooting, no-nonsense gunslinger. The Hatchet is supposed to be a “turn-around specialist”. But Miller is a corporate carpetbagger with only one tool in his box—bankruptcy. He wants us to believe that stiffing workers and unsecured creditors is the mark of success, but anyone can look successful if they don’t tally debt and damage . . . .
The founding convention of the Change to Win (CTW) Federation, held in St. Louis on September 27, was, if nothing else, filled with enthusiasm. The mood was captured by SEIU President Andy Stern in an impromptu press briefing; said Stern, “The change process has ended, and now that we’ve changed, we can win.” . . . .
What are we to make of the past round of bargaining between the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) and the Big Three (GM, Ford, and DaimlerChrysler)? While Telus, Stelco, and CBC workers were in the midst of bitter struggles, the reputedly difficult auto talks were in the end remarkably amiable. The question on many labor activists’ minds was: What happened to the CAW’s role in challenging the rest of the labor movement to push further, its status in opposing corporate-inspired globalization, its reputation for practicing social movement unionism? . . . .
I was a member of the Machinists union (IAM) from 1976-2003. In April 1989 I was walking an Eastern Airline picket line proudly holding up our “Eastern Airlines on Strike” sign. An individual walked up to me and identified himself as an ex-PATCO employee. He asked me why he should honor our picket lines since the AFL-CIO and IAM refused to honor their lines? The only answer that I was able to give him was that I did not support the AFL-CIO or the IAM position in this matter . . . .
