GM Settlement Fulfills Low Expectations
The United Auto Workers settled the first of the Detroit 3 contracts September 16 with an agreement that appeared to meet the low expectations union bargainers had worked hard to instill in members.
Second-tier workers at GM, who make $15-$17 an hour, will rise to $18-$19 by 2015.
They comprise about 5 percent of the workforce. While welcome, the raises will leave them far behind first-tier workers, whose $28 wage remains frozen, as it has since 2005.
A $5,000 signing bonus will sweeten the deal, as will three $1,000 lump-sum bonuses. The union promised a more "transparent" profit-sharing formula as well. One GM worker writing on a website for reformers fumed, "We lost that much since the '09 giveaway."
UAW President Bob King has said that each Detroit 3 worker has given up a total of $7,000 to $30,000 since 2005. He stated repeatedly over the course of negotiations that he wanted to keep costs for the automakers down, to help them compete with non-union companies.
Nick Waun, an outspoken reformer at GM's Lordstown, Ohio, plant, says his strategic location -- near the restroom -- means that workers usually stop to chat.
"I haven't talked to anybody who says they'll vote yes," Waun said soon after settlement. "The main reason is that it doesn't look like they get anything back at all. And it doesn't sound like there's any kind of bridge between tier two and tier oneóit's total separation."
NO CONTRACT CAMPAIGN
Unlike many unions, the UAW runs no contract campaigns to pressure the companies during bargaining -- no buttons, T-shirts, rallies, or even clear demands. Rank and filers and local officials glean snippets from the newspapers, and wait to see what bargainers will bring back. Under the terms of the 2009 government bailouts, neither GM nor Chrysler workers are allowed to strike.
At Ford, the most profitable of the three companies, workers face no such restriction. Yet rather than go to the strongest company first to set the pattern, as was the union's strategy in pre-concessions days, King bargained first with GM and Chrysler.
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Ford workers turned down concessions 3-1 in fall 2009, and workers there are seen as more restive and willing to vote "no" again.
Ford made $6.6 billion in 2010 and GM $4.7 billion. Chrysler saw an operating profit but posted an overall loss of half a billion because of interest on its loans paid to the American and Canadian governments.
The agreement reopens GM's closed Saturn assembly plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and promises investment that will "create or retain" 6,400 jobs. Many of those jobs would be moved from Mexico, the union said. Presumably they will be at the second-tier pay scale.
At the time of its bankruptcy, GM announced it would close 14 factories, costing 21,800 hourly jobs.
The agreement would add 1,300 skilled apprentices -- and offer big buyouts as incentives for existing skilled trades workers to quit.
Over the summer reformers sold T-shirts and circulated flyers by the thousands that demanded equal pay and restoration of the cost-of-living allowance. At Detroit's Labor Day parade, workers held banners demanding "End 2-Tier" and got thumbs-ups from UAW marchers. They will post an analysis of the tentative agreement at autoworkercaravan.org.
Gary Walkowicz, a bargaining committeeperson at Ford, said workers need to look for hidden concessions or loopholes not explained in the union's "Highlights" handout.
At GM in 2009, for example, a seemingly harmless clause said the parties "will work together...to arrive at innovative ways to staff [small car] operations." That language was used to justify slashing wages at a Michigan small-car plant, where 40 percent of the workforce was placed on permanent second-tier wages -- without a vote.
