As the fate of the Detroit auto industry is being debated, the arguments and positions are becoming crystal clear.There is now a chorus of right wing ideologues who are pushing to let GM go into bankruptcy.No argument here about "too big to fail."No regard for consequences like we heard when the Congress approved the $700 billion stash for the banking and financial industries. The Detroit Three are accused of mismanagement at a crescendo much louder than the financial giants we had to save.Why the double standard?
The reluctance to bail out GM and the other Detroit automakers has everything to do with the UAW, as if the impending collapse is the fault of the workers at the bottom of the heap.The "free market" types want to use the current auto industry crisis to force a "restructuring" of the companies' "relationships" – principally with the UAW.We hear a chorus about "bloated UAW contracts", contract terms that "GM can't live with," or references to "overpaid" autoworkers, etc.Never mind that just one year ago UAW autoworkers agreed to huge concessions in what President Ron Gettelfinger describes as a "transformative agreement" (for which, in the Detroit media, he was heralded "man of the year.").That agreement, according to Gettelfinger, was designed to make the UAW labor force cheaper than their non-union brethren at Honda, Toyota, etc.This from a once proud union which set the industry standard.
Before the 2007 agreements were negotiated, the average total UAW labor cost per vehicle was $2,400, or a little over 8% of the price of a vehicle.UAW workers then were among the most productive in the world, producing value added worth $206 per worker per hour.This is far more than he or she was earning in wages, even when benefits, statutory contributions and other costs are included. The margin of difference in labor costs with non-union Toyota before the transformative agreement was already then just $250-$300!
Autoworker Healthcare
The free marketers also complain about the "lavish" costs of autoworker healthcare, obscuring the fact that the UAW accepted all the risk for their retirees' health care when it agreed - to a "Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association," or VEBA at the Big Three's behest. To the forces which have conspired for many years to establish a "union-free" domestic auto industry, none of these concessions matter.
One of the reasons the free marketers love the non-union auto companies in the Sunbelt is that they have no retiree pensions and healthcare obligations to speak of.They ascribe this to the fact that they are "union-free." Unlike the mature domestics, the newer plants erected in the South don't have many retirees – at least not yet.The advocates of pure capitalism wish that the domestics would cut free their retirees who, in their eyes, don't add value to the corporate bottom line.Never mind that we retirees are now being swindled of the companies' part of the bargain.The Detroit 3 got the value they wanted from our decades of labor, but now the health care coverage that we got in return…well, that's now another story.
The UAW in the Bullseye
Here are two quotes from the free marketers which make the real target of the crisis very clear:
It is a mistake to use part of the $700-billion rescue package to reward high-tax, non-right-to-work states such as Michigan, says Peter Flaherty, President of the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC).The automaker bailout is actually a UAW bailout.The union will not allow companies to deploy capital in ways that the market would dictate, such as closing plants and layoffs."
The facts demonstrate how preposterous the last line is, considering the absence of any protest by the UAW over the past twenty years of plant closures! Here's what Colorado's "Grand Junction Sentinel" had to say:
"But the GM jalopy needs a complete overhaul, and putting taxpayer funds into the company as it now operates would do little but bump the problems down the road while keeping destructive United Auto Workers union contracts in place."
"
"Destructive" UAW contracts, indeed!!!The deregulators are not satisfied to dismantle government regulations so the financial market can run wild.They must rid industries of contractual obligations negotiated by that other democratic institution: workers' unions.The "destructive" contracts of which they speak have protected many lives in the factories, enabled workers to enjoy a good standard of living, and retire with dignity and security. Now this has been made out to be un-American, even un-patriotic."Joe Six-pack" is back to being the villain. If these capitalists had their way, workers in Detroit will be making the same wages paid in Mexico.That way, the remaining work could stay here.
"Union Busting"
The financial catastrophe unfolding before our eyes is the means to thrusting a dagger in what's left of the UAW's heart, long sought by American capital.From the moment that autoworkers forced GM to sign an agreement in the midst of the last "Great Depression," the union has been vilified as the interloper in the company's prerogatives.Except today we in the UAW are now described as interfering with the real wages that the "free market" would and should deliver - as if the "free market" were ordained and ordered by God Himself.
Each time the de-regulators have insisted on more de-regulation, it's been like a crazy man pouring more gasoline on the already raging fire.It's only making the financial crisis worse.Credit may flow again, but how many of the working poor will be taking out loans for, say, a new car or a house?What will trashing the UAW contracts get us?Fewer people to purchase the cars we produce?More citizens confronted with foreclosures and being kicked out of their homes?Even fewer sales at the local Mall?We are heading for a second New Orleans (without the flood water) in the place once known as the "Arsenal of Democracy?"This is the same mentality that governed the US military's conduct in Vietnam: "destroying villages in order to save them."
UAW Must do More
The union must stand up for itself, or we will all face millions more of so-called "low wage" earners as part of the growing class of the "working poor."The UAW has done very well by the rest of US workers, even if they don't know it.The media has pounded the UAW, taking advantage of flaws in its organization and errors by its leadership.Not surprisingly, there's less sympathy for the UAW than there once was.But it would be a tragic error if working people turned their backs on the UAW now.Even the non-union workers in Kentucky and Tennessee are benefiting from the wage and benefit standards set in Detroit by the UAW.With a UAW diminished – whether by (a) the fine print in a bailout agreement or (b) because GM is allowed to file for bankruptcy – the devastating consequences will serve to even further undermine the standards enjoyed by all working people.
This week UAW President Ron Gettelfinger is testifying in Congress to beg the case of the auto companies and the UAW before unsympathetic Republican Senators representing so-called "right-to-work" states.Apparently Alabama Senator Richard Shelby and his friends think it's quite patriotic to have the foreign brands produce, and make the profits, from the transportation that the USA needs.There is a political subtext to all this, too.President-elect Obama's victory was due in large part to the crescent of blue states stretching from Minnesota through Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania right up to the tip of Maine.Don't forget Michigan, where autoworkers rejected McCain/Palin and sent their campaign scurrying. Why would Republicans now reward a hostile constituency, when their remaining political base weaves itself through non-union workplaces in America's "Sunbelt?"
With their younger workforces, the foreign brands manufactured here admittedly enjoy a distinct advantage.The UAW agreed in the '07 negotiations to help the Detroit automakers be "competitive" by freeing them of the responsibility of the "legacy costs" of retiree healthcare with the VEBA in 2010.It's not been a year, and it's already clear that it is a non-starter, as the automakers have yet to pay into the trust fund as had been agreed.Besides, the value of the Detroit Three's payments into the trust are tied to the value of their stocks.GM's has plummeted from $42 to $5 in the year since the agreement was made.A $25 billion "bridge loan" for all three companies can't shore up both the VEBA commitments and the companies' need for liquidity.It is politically untenable for the union to ask taxpayers to bolster the VEBA when so many workers are doing without health care at all.If we are looking for real, lasting solutions that will also help our economy, the parties must demand that Congress pass HR 676, the single-payer national health insurance bill that would cover not just UAW retirees, but the 45 million Americans who are doing without. GM and the UAW agreed in principle to this approach back in 2005 modeled on the health care system in Canada . Making it happen here and now would level the playing field for the Detroit Three.
This is a defining moment for the UAW, and the entire labor movement.25 years ago PATCO was crushed by the deregulators' champion in the White House, Ronald Reagan.Today we are faced with a much larger devastation at the hands of the outgoing George W. Bush and his Republican friends.Testimony by the UAW's chief along with emails a by members and retirees to their representatives is fine, but it is not enough.We need to put a human face to the devastation facing UAW members.There should be an immediate "media day" at each of the UAW's regional offices to give workers and retirees a platform to speak out in defense of their own jobs, pensions and health care.Other unions, dealers, salaried personnel – you name it - should be invited as well.There' never been a time when the saying "we're all in this boat together" has been truer.The leadership should organize a car caravan around the headquarters of the Detroit 3 or, with the help of the AFL-CIO, organize a caravan to Washington, D.C. or even Wall St.There's no guarantee to what we could achieve, but we should nevertheless proclaim, "Not without a fight!" We are running out of time. Wouldn't having UAW members out in the streets be a good way to let everybody know that we re not dead?
Frank Hammer is a retired UAW-GM Dept International Representative & Past President and Chairperson,
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I notice that Alabama gets $1.66 from the federal government for every $1.00 it contributes; while Michigan contributes more than it gets back.
Yet the senator from Alabama has the gall to tell the auto industry to go screw itself when it asks for help in dealing with the fallout from Bush's failed rightwing economic polices that the senator from Alabama helped enable.
We should take all the money we send to these mooches in states like Alabama that have a long history of getting more than they contribute and send it to Detroit instead.
And tell these mooches that they need to restructure their states before they see any extra $. Maybe if their citizens had Unions and made a decent wage they wouldn't need to mooch.
Call Roger Kerson – PR Dir. UAW @ (313) 926-5000 and point out the above and tell the UAW it needs to get on the offensive regarding this issue.
Posted by: R Zwarich (Worker) Posted on: December 09, 2008 - 10:05
Frank Hammer Loves a Union that Does Not Love Him Back
In his plaintive article, 'Don't Let Them Destroy Our Union', Frank Hammer does a very good job of laying out the current plight of autoworkers, but his focus on the near term emergency largely obscures and ignores the longer-term big picture. This kind of shortsighted trade-off is going to do damage to the cause of autoworkers, (and ALL workers), as surely as The Big Three will always want to get the most work out of its workforce for the least amount of money. His rather vapid exhortations, that "the UAW must do more", seem to demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of the dynamics at play in the current circumstances between Big Money, Big Labor, and American workers.
The raw fundamentals of the autoworkers' plight have not changed since the UAW negotiated the last round of disastrous concessionary contracts in 2007.
The UAW 'business executives', running their proprietary UAW 'union business', are still eagerly willing to sell out the workers in order to save their own lucrative jobs.
The public consciousness, under the control of Big Media, (which is, of course, controlled by Big Money), is still heavily weighted down with '$70 per hour' disinformation, (and autoworkers should try to realize that their 'aristocrats of labor' arrogance and reputation has not always sat well even with other workers, let alone with the general public).
And the government, of course, is still very much controlled by the forces of Big Money. (And those hoping for the 'change we can believe in' that the incoming administration has promised, should heed this morning's news that tells us that Obama may be backing off his promise to support Employee's Free Choice Act, and reports are filtering in that he has already set loose his attack dog, Rahm Emmanuel, to work behind the scenes, in the hallways and backrooms of Congress, to kill it).
The one major factor that has changed since November of 2007, when the last round of disastrous contract concessions were finalized, and rammed down the workers' throats by the UAW, is the general economic collapse that has brought the entire nation, not just the auto industry, to the very brink of the abyss. To anyone who understands the 'big picture' dynamics here, it is certainly no surprise to see Ron Gettlefinger respond to this emergency by appearing before Congress with eagerly supplicating pledges to throw the workers into the abyss, (to save his own job), rather than take the risk entailed in using the potential (and proper) power of his position to lead working people to fight back in their own interests.
Mr. Hammer's odd statement, that "testimony [before Congress] by the UAW chief…..is fine", (as Gettlefinger will no doubt use his best boy-scout sincerity to promise that the UAW workforce will make whatever concessions are demanded, (just like he did in his previous testimony), if Congress will agree to 'bailout' his lucrative 'union business' along with The Big Three), only seems to demonstrate that he has not fully added up all the facts that his article shows him to be aware of.
It has seemed very clear for years now that the UAW was deliberately targeted by Big Money for the smackdown they've gotten, as a culminating continuation of the domination of working people by the forces of capital that began, as Mr. Hammer mentions, over twenty-five years ago when Reagan crushed PATCO, (while the rest of Organized Labor, already heavily corrupted by 'business unionism', stood by and did nothing). "Let's cut down the strongest, hang their bloody corpses up in public to slowly twist in the wind, and we'll just see how eager any other workers are to fight back".
And still, over a quarter of a century after PATCO, (when all the Fat Cat 'business executives' of Big Labor sat on their hands while Reagan delivered his hammer blow to the head of the once proud 'labor movement'), the workers themselves have not yet fully realized the consequences of 'business unionism'.
Many of them, (and perhaps even most), may very well know that the Fat Cats of Big Labor, the Ron Gettlefingers and the Andrew Sterns, are running our unions as their own privately owned and VERY lucrative (to them) businesses. And many may know that these Fat Cats quite naturally operate in their OWN best interests, (not in the best interests of the mere workers who dutifully pay their opulent salaries, but have no democratic control of their behavior). But very few have yet been able to fully realize that it is this institutionalized betrayal of working people by Big Labor, in its 'union business' collusion with Big Money to keep workers 'under control', that is the most immediate factor in their lack of ability to fight back.
Even those union workers who have not surrendered to the enervating apathy engendered by cynical realization of their union's betrayals, even the dissidents and radicals among the organized labor work force, are so deeply imbued with three and four generations worth of 'loyalty to the union' culture, that they cannot fully realize that it is their own damn unions, working hand in glove with Big Money, that are helping to drive working people ever further down the economic ladder.
Even those, like Mr. Hammer, who know full well, and pay lip service to the facts on the ground that document the UAW's betrayal, cannot bring themselves to fully realize that this institution of 'business unionism', this collusion between Big Labor and Big Money, is the lead weight chained around our necks that cripples our ability to fight back against Big Money.
Even people who understand the extent to which the UAW Fat Cats betrayed the workforce that pays their opulent salaries, in the last round of contract concessions, cannot fully realize that these 'business unions' are the most immediate front line agents of the forces that are driving us inexorably back toward the very poverty from which they raised us up in the time of our grandparents.
Here we see Frank Hammer, on behalf of the Center for Labor Renewal, rise up to loyally defend his union. Even after demonstrating an awareness of the depth of the concessions that the UAW so recently and so willingly made, (cutting the wages of the next generation of autoworkers in HALF, fer crissakes), he trots out the show pony of the UAW's proud legacy one more time, and all he has to say about its disgraceful unwillingness to fight back to preserve what our grandparents won for us, is that "the UAW must do more", and "the UAW must stand up for itself". (I wonder if Mr. Frank is going to hold his breath while he waits for that to happen).
I believe that Mr. Hammer knows better than this. I believe that the Center for Labor Renewal knows better than this. I believe that the muddled thinking that Mr. Hammer exhibits here is clouded by generations of very admirable, but now very foolishly misguided, union loyalty.
Mr. Hammer does a reasonably good job of representing 'the problem'. He does a reasonably good job of showing that the woes of these mismanaged companies cannot be blamed on their workforce. But when it comes time to outline 'the solution', all he can do (apparently) is rise to the defense of one of the major players who conspired to bring the autoworkers to their currently helpless plight.
Had the UAW remembered the proud heritage from which it was born, had it remembered the life and death risks taken, and the bone and blood sacrifices made, that brought it into existence, it could now stand proudly at the head of a massive movement of workers in this nation, hammers and shovels and steel tools in hand, ready to fight for their families immediate safety and long term security. Had such a thing happened, we would not now be watching helplessly as our government reaches into our pockets, at a time when we are worried about putting food on our children's plates, and keeping a roof over their heads, to bail out the obscenely wealthy casino gamblers on Wall Street.
Until working people figure out that business unions are our enemies, NOT our friends, we will continue to be bamboozled into belting out refrains of 'Solidarity Forever' while the Fat Cats who own and run our unions sit at lunch in the finest restaurants, and play golf at the finest resorts and country clubs, with the executives of the companies whose single-minded objective is to get the most work out of us for the least amount of money.
Zwarich
Posted by: Eric (?) Posted on: November 24, 2008 - 10:37
A simple fact evaded by those who defend the UAW. You are now asking millions of Americans whose income and benefits are either less than, or less secure than, those of the UAW to subsidize the UAW's income and benefits. Why should they?
Many of the financial catastrophes of recent months were a shock, at least as to the degree of their severity. The decline of the U.S. auto industry is no shock to anyone.
I want to know in plain terms, not vague generalities, what sacrifice the UAW will make in exchange for me and my kids and their kids taking on further debt to bail you out?
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The Center for Labor Renewal is an ever expanding circle of activists and ideas dedicated to combining different threads of working class organizing and activism for the transformation and renewal of labor as a progressive social movement in this country and internationally.
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Solidarity Divided - Bill Fletcher Jr. & Fernando Gapasin - University of California Press
Staley 'The fight for a new labor movement' - Steven K. Ashby & C. J. Hawking - University of Illinois Press
Radical Unionism In the Midwest, 1900 - 1950 - Rosemary Feurer - University of Illinois Press
US Labor In Trouble and Transition - Kim Moody - Verso Books
