I'm a little shocked the UAW has the balls to walk. What was really interesting though is that the news says the rep 73k workers at GM. Which means best case scenario they rep a total of 150-170k workers at the big 3 altogether. Which means the UAW is dead and dying.
UAW walks
it's about 180k total. 190k if you throw in delphi. this is down from 285k in 2003 or 316k if you include delphi.
here's the break down...
2003:
delphi - 31k
chrysler - 66k
ford - 94k
gm - 125k
2007:
delphi - 10k
chrysler - 48k
ford - 58k
gm - 74k
thugarchist wrote:
I'm a little shocked the UAW has the balls to walk. What was really interesting though is that the news says the rep 73k workers at GM. Which means best case scenario they rep a total of 150-170k workers at the big 3 altogether. Which means the UAW is dead and dying.
i can't find the exact numbers right now, but...
there's been an overall decline in the industry in US, but the UAW's losses are disproportionately larger than the overall losses to the industry. while GM, Ford and Chrysler have closed plants and cut jobs, Honda, Nissan and particularly Toyota have increased production in the US. the latter three have opened plants in regions of historically very low union density outside of the UAW's power center. the UAW has failed to organize these plants. in some ways it's similar to the ufcw's decline in the meatpacking industry.
Dundee_United wrote:
How does that compare to the size of the industry overall? Is there a similar pattern of decline in car-plant workers or does that number remain the same in the four year period?
according to Diane Feeley, who recently retired from a parts plant, there are about a million auto workers in the USA, including auto parts, as i recall. but she said half were in the UAW which would imply a half million in the UAW which isn't consistent with the data posted here. various German and Japanese automakers have plants in the south and maybe elsewhere, and I don't believe they have cut down production. if anything, the reverse. so perhaps less than half the total auto manufacturing workforce is in UAW now. Feeley was of the opinion that the UAW is incapable of organizing the unorganized motor vehicle manufacturing industry, and that only a new organization from the ground up could do so.
Quote:
The Teamsters, the largest transportation union in North America, will stand with our 73,000 UAW brothers and sisters in their fight with General Motors. Teamsters will not cross a UAW picket line and our 10,000 automotive transport members will not deliver GM cars.It is time to put a stop to corporate America's attack on the security of hardworking men and women in the United States.
Workers should not solely bear the brunt of decades of bad business decisions by GM management. By outsourcing good jobs and creating a growing environment of economic and job insecurity, GM has failed its workers and its customers.
This struggle highlights the ever-growing crisis in our nation's health care system and corporate America's continued pursuit of unfair trade deals. This approach has failed the American worker and is destroying the middle class.
Live Bait & Ammo #100: Highball the Strike
http://www.soldiersofsolidarity.com/
At the press conference to announce the UAW strike against GM, Gettelfinger stood before the microphone like a deer in the headlights and said he didn’t want to strike. He felt “pushed off a cliff.” He said, “No one wins a strike.”
Should rank & file members have to remind the president of the UAW that everything we ever gained—from union recognition to Cost-of-Living-Adjustment and Thirty-and-Out—was won in a strike?
Gettelfinger reiterated concession after concession after concession that he has negotiated on behalf of GM. Then, he expressed surprise that the sum total didn’t add up to a positive, and that GM wasn’t more cooperative. How is it he never learned that when you roll over, again and again, management takes you for a punk not a partner?
How should we regard a union leader who waves the white flag in the first hour of a strike?
Gettelfinger turned to Cal Rapson, UAW Vice-President in charge of the GM department and asked him if he wanted to say anything. Rapson sat on his hands and shook his head “no”. I have never seen a more abominable lack of leadership. Rapson put 73,000 workers out on the street and he had nothing to say to them? Rapson should be taken off the job, denied Workers Comp, and placed on extended disability for loss of backbone.
Gettelfinger suggested that he had been “naive” about GM’s intentions. The loss of innocence is tragic in children not old men. Everyone in work boots knows GM intends to take back everything they can.
Gettelfinger admitted that he had approached GM about a union controlled health care plan—“VEBA”—two years ago. He never consulted UAW members and retirees about his VEBA idea. He consulted with Lazard Ltd. and came up with a plan to help the folks on Wall Street who live off unearned income, and union office rats who need a desk to put their feet on.
Local Union leaders shouldn’t have to field all the phone calls from distraught retirees. The retirees who won strikes back in the day deserve to have an information meeting where Rapson and Gettelfinger explain how an underfunded health care plan is going to protect them. They deserve answers to their questions straight from the horse’s mouth. Anybody who wants to screw around in the backroom and deliver Rosemary’s baby should be prepared to attend the baptism by fire, not pass the buck off to local officials.
Reporters, analysts, and rank & file UAW members have openly speculated that the strike is a ploy. If it’s short and sweet, we should be suspicious. We gave up $2,000 a year minimum for the last VEBA. We stand to lose more in four years of a concession contract than we would in a sixty day strike.
Ask yourself some questions while you picket. Does a VEBA make you eager to retire or determined to work as long as you can? Can you trust a scheme that’s long on promises and short on cash? Can you keep your head above water without COLA? Is it a good idea to sell out new hires? Can we retreat to victory?
The corporations want to take away everything we ever earned. The union president responds by calling a strike, and then saying, “No one wins a strike”.
That’s a set up.
If we want to win, we have to highball the strike and demand no end until VEBA is off the table, full cost of living is restored, retirees get the health care they earned from the company, temps win equal status as union members, and we retain the right to strike over outsourcing and subcontracting.
Don’t back down. Send bargainers a message. Bring hand made signs to the picket.
[VEBA Short Changes Retirees]
[Concessions Don’t Save Jobs]
[Equal Rights for New Hires]
[COA is DOA]
[Don’t Rock the VEBA, Sink It]
[No COLA No Contract]
[Fight to Win]
And if they come back with a tentative agreement in a matter of days, be prepared to send them back to the table. Nothing like a boot to the backside to straighten a spine.
thugarchist wrote:
There are now more UAW members in the Technical-Office-Professional division than in the autoworker division. Its a big giant shit heap of a union.
one of their big strategic campaigns right now is trying to organize UNITE-HERE leftovers at the atlantic city casinos.
syndicalistcat wrote:
various German and Japanese automakers have plants in the south and maybe elsewhere, and I don't believe they have cut down production. if anything, the reverse.
benz opened a plant in SC and can't make them fast enough. all nonunion of course.
newyawka wrote:
syndicalistcat wrote:
various German and Japanese automakers have plants in the south and maybe elsewhere, and I don't believe they have cut down production. if anything, the reverse.benz opened a plant in SC and can't make them fast enough. all nonunion of course.
VW will also likely build a US plant as they plan to triple sales in the US over the next 10 years.
The GM Windsor transmission plant in Ontario has been shut down. GM have 19000 employees in Canada and there are another 80000 wokring for subcontractors. They're talking about lay-offs due to the strike, although these might only be temporary. If they do stop paying people we could see action across the border as well.
Some surprisingly frank comments, I thought:
"...David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, said before the strike began that the UAW leadership may need a walkout to show members that it did all it could to get the best deal.
'They're in a bit of a box, in that they need some drama to get an affirmative vote on this," he said...'"
two snippets from that article
Quote:
The striking workers will receive $200 a week plus medical benefits from the UAW's strike fund. The union had more than $800 million in that fund as of last November, according to the UAW's Web site.
Quote:
But Monday afternoon, the Teamsters transportation union said its 10,000 automotive transport members would not cross UAW picket lines to deliver GM cars and trucks.
Baltimore GM plant's closed in 2005
I remember the last time there was a nationwide strike at GM... I believe it was sparked under the pretext of safety in one shop that was an essential part of the production chain. But the Baltimore UAW Local wasn't interested in doing any solidarity. The closest solidarity rally happened in D.C. and was organized (and controlled) by the ISO.
A while after that strike ended, Baltimore got the news that GM was closing the plant.
thug wrote
Quote:
"I'm a little shocked the UAW has the balls to walk..."
David Cole was quoted as saying:
Quote:
"...the UAW leadership may need a walkout to show members that it did all it could to get the best deal. 'They're in a bit of a box, in that they need some drama to get an affirmative vote'..."
Wednesday AM News report:
The United Auto Workers and General Motors Corp. said Wednesday they have reached a tentative contract agreement that ends a two-day nationwide strike immediately....(the agreement) shifts the burden of retiree health care from GM to the union and give workers bonuses and lump-sum payments...The contract...will be subject to a vote of GM's 73,000 rank-and-file members...The deal means UAW will tell workers to head back to their jobs at around 80 GM facilities across the nation. The union went on strike at 11 a.m. Monday when talks broke down...The agreement includes GM's top priority in the negotiations — shifting most of its $51 billion unfunded retiree health care obligation to a UAW-run trust...Gettelfinger said he's confident of ratification and that voting likely will start as soon as this weekend...The UAW also expects to decide Thursday what automaker it will negotiate with next..."
Hmnn. In a BBC article ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7013814.stm ) GM Bosses are quoted as saying that this contract will keep GM "competitive" so they can "maintain a strong manufacturing presence in the United States along with significant future investments."
The UAW was asking for some guarantees regarding future automobile models being made in the USA. I can't tell if they got anything along those lines or not (though I'm thinking not, since the union suits don't appear to be crowing about it).
from the wsj.com this morning...
GM, UAW Reach
Tentative Agreement
Framework Gives Company
More Hiring Flexibility,
Creates Health-Care Fund
By JOSEPH B. WHITE, JOHN D. STOLL and JEFFREY MCCRACKEN
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
September 26, 2007 6:15 a.m.
DETROIT -- General Motors Corp. and the United Auto Workers early Wednesday morning announced a tentative agreement on a new national contract for about 74,000 U.S. auto workers that includes a historic restructuring of GM's obligations for UAW retiree health care. The deal was announced at about 4 a.m. in Detroit after a two-day national strike by the UAW against GM.
Details of the contract weren't disclosed. GM said the tentative contract "paves the way for GM to significantly improve its manufacturing competitiveness, providing the basis for maintaining and strengthening its core manufacturing base in the United States." (Read the full statement1.)
Under the framework taking shape late Tuesday, it was expected that GM would give the UAW commitments for substantial investment in plants in the U.S. -- many of those tied to new cars, trucks, engines and transmissions the company has on the drawing board, according to people familiar with the process.
"This agreement helps us close the fundamental competitive gaps that exist in our business," Rick Wagoner, GM chairman and chief executive said in a statement. "The projected competitive improvements in this agreement will allow us to maintain a strong manufacturing presence in the United States along with significant future investments."
During a press conference with media at 4 a.m. local time, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said the deal with GM was officially sealed at 3:05 a.m. "We are recessing the strike effective at 4 a.m. this morning," he said. "We will be prepared to go into ratification meetings by the end of this week. He said production would resume in the afternoon, some skilled trades people would report earlier in the day.
Mr. Gettelfinger noted the UAW was able to get 80-years worth of funding for the independent trust it is setting up on behalf of its retirees.
The creation of an independent trust to take over some $50 billion owed to GM-UAW retirees for health care would represent a significant boost for GM, which has had its credit ratings knocked down to junk ratings in part because of concerns about the huge debt, which is more than double GM's current market capitalization.
GM has an estimated $51 billion retiree health-care obligation to UAW members and retirees. At 70 cents on the dollar, the fund, called a Voluntary Employees Beneficiary Association, or VEBA, would be worth in excess of $35 billion.
Among the other key elements of the new deal that took shape late Tuesday were substantial changes to the much-maligned Jobs Bank, a job-security provision that allowed unemployed UAW members to receive full pay for years without working. The provision will still exist, but changed to make it much less likely there will be many people in the Jobs Bank for any length of time, according to people familiar with the process.
Other elements, as of late Tuesday night, included: a new-hire rates for new UAW members brought into GM. The rate would probably be far less -- maybe even half -- the current wage-and-compensation package given to UAW-GM members, said these people.
The lower, new-hire compensation package will likely not apply to skilled-trades workers, who do work such as designing and engineering parts and products and are among the highest-paid UAW members.
However, 4,000 to 5,000 temporary workers at GM would be hired in as full-time workers and paid at the full, tier-one wage-and-compensation rate that is estimated at $70-$75 an hour once wages, benefits and pensions are included. To make room for new hires, GM would again offer substantial early-retirement buyouts for workers.
Getting these temp workers hired as full-time GM employees at the compensation rate was a top priority for the UAW, which has added few members at the Big Three and was seen as a graying union.
GM would be able to negotiate a diversion on cost-of-living adjustments and increased cost-sharing on health care for active workers. Another potentially big gain for GM if the deal is approved: no wage increases during the life of the contract.
There will likely be a signing bonus for workers, plus lump-sum bonuses of 3%, 4% and 3% of annual pay over the last three years of the deal, people familiar with the process said late Tuesday. It wasn't clear early Wednesday if any of these provisions had been altered in last minute bargaining.
Earlier Tuesday, Mr. Gettelfinger had stepped up public pressure on GM to improve its offers on job security and profit sharing with union workers. Meanwhile, people familiar with the matter said the issues remaining to be resolved included what UAW's members can expect to get if GM regains financial success thanks to UAW concessions.
Early Wednesday, a GM spokeswoman said the auto maker isn't giving details about the tentative agreement at this time, instead allowing the UAW to take the lead on communicating with its members.
"I'm pleased to say that we have a VEBA in place that will secure the benefits of our retirees," Mr. Gettelfinger said at the early morning news conference inside the union's Detroit headquarters.
Mr. Gettelfinger said he's confident of ratification and that voting likely will start as soon as this weekend. Union leaders will be briefed on Thursday and Friday, he said. The UAW also expects to decide Thursday what auto maker it will negotiate with next.
Despite the strike's disruption, the auto maker's shares weakened only slightly on Tuesday. In 4 p.m. New York Stock Exchange composite trading, GM's shares were down 0.9% to $34.42. Investors and analysts were betting that more than 73,000 striking auto workers will shortly return to the assembly lines. In midday trading Wednesday in Frankfurt, shares of GM climbed 7.3% to €26.20 ($37.07).
The two sides have been holding marathon sessions since Sept. 13. But the strike, and a series of public statements by Mr. Gettelfinger, have made it clear that for much of that time GM and UAW leaders were miscalculating the resolve of their counterparts.
The walkout was the first by the UAW against GM since 1998.
The new contract, if ratified, would represent a significant turning point in the history of relations between the UAW and the three big Detroit auto makers. The union in years past entered negotiations with the Detroit Three confident that it could win higher wages and better benefits without any significant concessions. The new agreement represents a recognition by the UAW that it can no longer outrun the competitive forces that have altered the U.S. auto industry during the past 30 years.
The Detroit Three auto makers, once an oligopoly in the U.S., now control barely half of U.S. light vehicle sales. The recent downturn in sport-utility vehicle and pickup demand has battered GM, Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC, and all three still are struggling to compete in passenger-car segments dominated by Asian auto makers. GM's market share has slid from more than 40% in the mid 1980s to just under 24% today.
As the Detroit Three lost market share, so also did the UAW. UAW workers now build fewer than half the vehicles sold in the country, and their power to set the pattern for wages and benefits has crumbled. The new GM contract would over time move UAW workers closer to the wage and benefit schemes used by non-union auto workers at plants run by Asian and European auto makers in the Southern U.S.
For GM, restructuring the UAW health care legacy burden should help free the company to pursue Mr. Wagoner's strategy of accelerating growth outside the U.S.
Mr. Wagoner took the helm of GM in 2000, and has since pursued a policy of designing GM vehicles so they could be sold and built anywhere in the world. By 2011, analysts expect GM will be in a position to shift a significant amount of work out of the U.S. if the conditions warrant. GM now sells more vehicles outside the U.S., and Mr. Wagoner is increasingly focusing GM's investment on growing outside the mature markets of the U.S and Western Europe.
From: webmaster@futureoftheunion.com
To: news@futureoftheunion.com
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2007 19:38:48 +0000
Subject: [Future of the Union] Vote NO To GM-UAW Tentative Agreement
Vote NO To GM-UAW Tentative Agreement
by Todd M. Jordan/UAW Local 292
http://futureoftheunion.com/?p=5442
The agreement is nothing, but a backdoor Delphi deal. Stand your ground, send them back to the table.
Make sure to read Delphi’s purposed Competitive Operation Agreement before you vote.
http://www.futureoftheunion.com/docs/delphi/kokomocoaproposal.pdf
Our brothers and sisters at the Big Three must understand that what happened at Delphi is coming their way if they do not hold the line now in their 2007 national negoitations.
Delphi only lasted one contract with a two-tier supplemental agreement and now we are all two-tier employees.
We went from a career to “just another job” with a single vote.
Don’t let it happen to General Motors and the rest of the auto industry.
Your struggle is our struggle. Hold the line!
[VEBA Short Changes Retirees]
[Concessions Don’t Save Jobs]
[Equal Rights for New Hires]
[COA is DOA]
[Don’t Rock the VEBA, Sink It]
[No COLA No Contract]
[Fight to Win]
http://www.futureoftheunion.com/
September 26, 2007
G.M. and Union Reach Tentative Agreement
By MICHELINE MAYNARD and NICK BUNKLEY
DETROIT, Sept. 26 — The United Automobile Workers union and General Motors reached a landmark agreement early today, ending a two-day strike. The key provision of the new contract is a health care trust that would get G.M.’s massive liability off its books.
The deal was announced by the company and the union in separate statements. The U.A.W. had walked out on G.M. on Monday morning, but production will resume this afternoon.
G.M. said the tentative agreement was reached at 3:05 a.m. Eastern. The U.A.W. recessed the strike and said if the contract was not ratified, workers could return to picket lines. The agreement included a memorandum of understanding to establish an independent health care trust, as well as other changes to the national agreement.
G.M. said implementation of the trust would be subject to court approval, as well as a review by G.M.’s accounting for the trust by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The memorandum apparently establishes the principle of the trust, and allows the two sides to complete its details later. Analysts had predicted the union and the company might have to take that step, because of the complexity of such a trust.
“There’s no question this was one of the most complex and difficult bargaining sessions in the history of the G.M./U.A.W. relationship,” Rick Wagoner, G.M.’s chief executive, said in a statement.
U.A.W. leaders are likely to meet on Friday to consider the contract. If approved, it would go to workers for a vote.
The union’s president, Ron Gettelfinger, said the new contract “will absolutely protect their jobs and keep jobs from being reduced.” He said, while not offering specifics, that the number of jobs at G.M. would be “pretty much the same if not higher” when the contract concludes in 2011.
Later, Mr. Gettelfinger confirmed in a radio interview that there was a signing bonus for workers, but declined to state its size. He also declined comment on reports that the contract contained a two-tier wage program, with sharply lower rates for any new workers hired by G.M.
The U.A.W.’s old agreement with G.M. expired at midnight on Sept. 14.
Rather than strike immediately, however, the union extended the contract on an hour-by-hour basis. But on Monday, the U.A.W. struck G.M. when it failed to reach agreement by an 11 a.m. Eastern strike deadline.
The union had not staged a national strike since 1970; its last major walkout, at two plants in Flint, Mich., was in 1998.
The strike was the sufficient push the two sides needed to reach an agreement in the talks, which G.M. called the most important in a generation.
G.M.’s key demand was the trust, called a voluntary employee benefit association, or VEBA. The VEBA, which would include the union’s participation, would be the first among the Detroit companies to take full responsibility for coverage for active and retired workers and their families. G.M. estimates that liability at $55 billion.
Similar trusts could soon follow at the Ford Motor Company and Chrysler LLC. They have pushed hard in contract negotiations for the union to agree to form such trusts, maintaining that their so-called legacy costs hinder their ability to compete with Japanese auto companies, whose costs are lower.
All told, the three companies have health care liabilities totaling nearly $100 billion.
Specifics of the funding for the trust were not available, but Mr. Gettelfinger said it would “secure the benefits of our retirees” and every G.M. hourly worker now at the company. He said the fund, which would last for 80 years, “would be solvent” throughout that time.
A primary concern for U.A.W. leaders, who have seen such funds at other companies run dry, forcing the union to grab concessions so that they could be replenished. Mr. Gettelfinger hinted that if this fund runs low, G.M. would make new investments in it. Asked if there was a “backstop” for it, Mr. Gettelfinger said, “I’m not going into details, but I like that word.”
The U.A.W., in turn, was pushing for job security for the workers who remain at G.M. after it completes a restructuring plan. G.M. plans to cut 30,000 jobs and close all or part of a dozen plants by next year.
But G.M., in its statement said the deal paved the way for it “to significantly improve its manufacturing competitiveness, providing the basis for maintaining and strengthening its core manufacturing base in the United States.”
“This agreement helps us close the fundamental competitive gaps that exist in our business,” Mr. Wagoner said.
“The projected competitive improvements in this agreement will allow us to maintain a strong manufacturing presence in the United States along with significant future investments.”
Once the voting ends, the union will move on to the other car companies, where it traditionally tries to get similar agreements.
Negotiations at Ford and Chrysler have continued, though at a snail’s pace, while the G.M. discussions dragged on. With negotiations there complete, the union expected to shift its attention to one of the two remaining companies.
Although union leaders agreed to the trust, which Mr. Gettelfinger said was in workers’ best interest, the U.A.W. could face an uphill fight in winning workers’ support for the new contract.
Even before the tentative settlement was reached today, some dissidents have challenged the idea as a further deterioration of benefits that the union has enjoyed for generations.
Under it the trust, G.M. will invest cash and stock in a fund, which would have independent administers. But the union would supervise benefits for workers, families and retirees. It has agreed to smaller such trusts at G.M. and Ford, and has similar deals at Caterpillar as well as Dana Corporation, which is operating in bankruptcy.
VEBAs, which reduce a company’s debt, are an increasingly common choice by unions at troubled companies such as Bethlehem Steel and Goodyear Tire and Rubber, which established a trust with the United Steelworkers union last year.
Mr. Gettelfinger said the U.A.W. worked closely with G.M.’s chief financial officer, Frederick Henderson, to be sure that the VEBA plan would be "secure." The union also received advice from Lazard Limited as well as actuaries who specialize in such plans.
In the interview this morning on WJR-AM radio, Mr. Gettelfinger acknowledged the debate that is already taking place within the union over shifting health care obligations from G.M. to the trust, which would be independently administered.
"There will be those who will mount opposition to that," Mr. Gettelfinger said. "I’ll be glad to stand up in front of anybody and defend that VEBA and show that they’re going to be secure with their retirement benefits. I’m not afraid of that battle at all."
He went on, "I’m looking forward to the debate about the VEBA and I think our retirees will be especially pleased."
Nick Bunkley reported from Detroit and Micheline Maynard reported from New York.
Quote:
The union’s president, Ron Gettelfinger, said the new contract “will absolutely protect their jobs and keep jobs from being reduced.” He said, while not offering specifics, that the number of jobs at G.M. would be “pretty much the same if not higher” when the contract concludes in 2011.
that was the core union demand, and now he's being cagy
(article from NYT, btw)
details: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/business/27auto.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
(click link at left)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/23/business/main3290066.shtml