U.A.W. R.I.P.?

The Nation: The Key To Union Survival Is Organizing Foreign-Owned Factories

(The Nation)  This column was written by Max Fraser.

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National strikes at two of the three major American auto manufacturers have drawn much attention to Detroit in recent weeks, but the latest round of contract negotiations makes it clear that the future of American auto unionism (if there is one) must lie elsewhere. The historic concessions made by the United Auto Workers, billed as necessary measures to keep the reeling Big Three from bankruptcy, in fact represent something far more ominous. To "save" the domestic auto industry, the union may end up killing itself.

The lowlights of the General Motors contract -- the model for subsequent deals with Chrysler and Ford -- are the creation of an independent benefit trust to assume GM's healthcare obligations to 340,000 UAW retirees and a tiered wage-and-benefit scale for future hires. As many as one-third of GM's hourly jobs may be reclassified as "non-core," with new workers receiving fewer benefits and earning roughly half the wages of current employees. The implications for future organizing are likely to be profound--as Gary Chaison, professor of industrial relations at Clark University, told the Detroit Free Press, "two-tiered wage structures are not what unions are about, when they talk about solidarity."

The contract will reduce the gap between labor costs at unionized GM plants and those at foreign-owned US plants -- all thirty-three of which are nonunion -- by as much as 50 percent. The Wall Street Journal summed up the significance of the deal: "Toyota Motor Corp., not GM or the UAW, now sets the bar for labor costs in the U.S. auto industry."

For the UAW, once the standard-bearer for industrial unionism, that shift may be fatal. So long as the union remains tied to Detroit and committed to the "jointness" business model that has created the ideological framework for repeated concessions, the UAW seems fated to become, at best, industrially irrelevant. And maybe worse -- this past February, the Free Press reported that at a Toyota plant in Georgetown, Kentucky, "workers for a foreign automaker for the first time averaged more in base pay and bonuses than UAW members working for domestic automakers." It was a shocking sign that autoworkers may no longer see a material benefit from joining the UAW.

Hourly wages for union and nonunion autoworkers in fact have been roughly comparable for some time, although the UAW's vaunted benefits packages have brought total compensation for members well above that of their nonunion peers. By saving as much as $30 an hour on benefits, foreign automakers have been able to dampen interest in the union by paying wages well above the regional standard in places like Canton, Mississippi, where Nissan workers can make more than double the state average. The overall effect throughout the industry is downward pressure on earnings, as the Big Three demand concessions to remain competitive on labor costs, while the UAW mortgages what remains of the union advantage for dubious promises of job security.

So what is to be done? The answer, like the answer to much of the broader labor movement's woes, lies in the rural South and Midwest, where the proliferation of Toyota, Honda and other foreign-owned plants has accounted for virtually all recent growth in domestic auto manufacturing. After decades of watching plants close down and jobs move overseas, the UAW finds itself beset by a process of globalization-in-reverse, as foreign automakers increasingly "insource" production with cheap nonunion labor in right-to-work and Rust Belt states. The global South has arrived in Detroit's backyard.

Despite repeated efforts, the UAW has never been able to establish a foothold in these foreign-owned factories, strategically located in rural areas with a negligible union presence, antilabor state legislation and depressed local economies. Foreign automakers have deployed a range of tactics to keep union supporters out of factories. At a Honda plant scheduled to open in Greensburg, Indiana, next year, the company is imposing hiring restrictions based on residency to prevent thousands of out-of-work UAW members in the state from applying for the new jobs. Just outside the company's carefully delineated twenty-county hiring zone is Anderson, a city once home to three GM factories. All three have closed since 2003, putting some 22,000 UAW members out of a job, none of whom will be able to apply for work at the new Honda Greensburg facility.

If the UAW is to have a future, it must figure out a way into these foreign-owned factories. There have been encouraging signs at two Alabama plants, and in Georgetown, where Toyota workers have mounted what may be the most viable current organizing campaign, aided by groups like Jobs With Justice.

That kind of broad-based mobilization will be needed to counter the sophisticated antiunionism of foreign automakers. It will also require a political strategy to combat the "Third Worldization" of the American South, where a century and a half of economic depression has created an industrial backwater of nonunion labor. In its heyday, the UAW was often credited with setting the standard for the American middle class, and it could do the same today in the South. But unless it re-establishes an industrywide organizing presence, the union that long embodied the strength of the twentieth-century American labor movement may fast become a thing of the past.

[xzavierbrown]

Posted by gkc99 at 09:19 AM : Oct 21, 2007
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if you are that greatfull then petition for a holiday..call it union day..oh wait we already have that..ITS ALREADY LAW. the union had served its purpose and must understand that..IT IS NOT CATERING FOR THE NEEDS OF THE WORK FORCE BUT MORE OF FEEDING ITS OWN GREED..

kinda like al shaprton..the need for these race activists are almost done...BUT THEY REMAIN AND INSTEAD OF HELPING THE CAUSE..IT JUST COMPLICATES IT..

[lawandorder7]

I can''t belive that a dumb dumb would bring the Bush administration it on this. It is the UAW and there greed, noy Bush Dumb Dumb. The UAW is out of step and out the DOOR. Get the UAW out of the work force.

[quatrops]

The benefits (health care, pensions, etc.)procured by unions in the 20th century provided for their members a level of security unmatched anywhere in the world. Those benefits, accompanied by a very comfortable wage scale and absurdly excessive corporate salaries, serve to point out the failings of the American business model.

Americans in general have a problem with short-term vision. Instant gratification is the norm. Long-term vision is almost non-existant in corporate and union offices.

The failure of union leaders to forsee the long-term effects of excessive benefits packages has resulted in the labor movement being where it is today.

Japan did not succeed in becoming the major player in the industry because they built a better car. They did so because they produced good cars at a substantially lower cost than their American competitors. Substantial enough that one could often see a preponderance of Japanese vehicles in the parking lots of GM, Ford, etc. (That latter observation also points out the short-sightedness and greed of the American worker himself).

Unfortunately, the example set by the incompetent Bush administration in the area of long-term vision doesn''t help much. Invade Iraq? Sure! Plan for the aftermath of our takeover? Forget it!

[gkc99]

"hence now there are labor laws..time to mothball the unions..its becoming more of a liability than an asset"--Posted by xzavierbrown


Which will soon be repealed or inactived by Neoconscum if folks like Xavier have their way--destroy careers that took a lifetime to build, take away jobs and benefits and force Americans to work longer hours for less, while the billionaries who operate George Bushit and the Neoconscum make out like bandits. This is the future for American workers under a Repugniscum goverment.

Remember: "the labor movement, the folks who brought you the weekend." Were it not for the labor movement, most of you folks would be working 12 hour days, 6 days a week. That''s how the Xaviers would like to see it again, so they can make more money for themselves at your expense.

[brianbwb-2009]

Unions were a necessary part in elevating the lives of working Americans above $1 per day wages, without their tactics, slavery would be worse today than before.

Having said that, once the money that unions controlled got to be so much, corruption creeped in, the Union bosses jumped into bed with the company bosses, and everyone got so involved in the irrelevant politics that the original purpose was forgotten by all but the workers. This will result in the demise of the Unions as they exist today, and the inexorable pressure to return America to the slave state that existed before the unions.

To counter this, new unions will have to be formed, the UAW must be replaced with a stronger, younger, and less corrupt version of itself, perhaps with a new name, and perhaps more regional in scope, with less power concentrated at the top.

It would also be a good idea to include shareholders as a branch of the unions, who can then challenge the practice of pouring unnecessarily large amounts of money into exec salaries, which means that the workers and shareholders alike enjoy more of the profits, making the companies more efficient, performance oriented, and competitive quality wise. It will also force execs to prove their worth, because as the likes of Ken Lay, and Jeff Skilling show, many, if not most execs are not worth a fraction of what they are paid, and those millions of dollars can better be used elsewhere...

[xzavierbrown]

If it weren''''t for unions, their would be no labor laws at all.

Posted by Red1530 at 08:35 PM : Oct 20, 2007
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hence now there are labor laws..time to mothball the unions..its becoming more of a liability than an asset.

[sparks224]

The unions are going down and the middle class is going down at the same time.

Probably just a coincidence.

[red1530]

Unions became obsolete when the labor laws both at the Federal and State levels were created, They have devolved into nothing more than mob laundering operations.

Posted by lorinkundert at 01:25 PM : Oct 20, 2007

If it weren''t for unions, their would be no labor laws at all.

[monkfellow]

As far as all the haughty comments about "pension funds being ransaked by evil bosses" or whatever drivel comes out.
The posters ignore the Teamsters being in bed with the Mafia and their joint dealings in Las Vegas,as well as the continuing task of cleaning out leftwing and communist scum from the mainstream labor movement in the postwar era.
Big labor and their thugs could not keep the Reagan Democrats from actually exercising some independence and brainpower and saving this country from Jimmy Carter and the socialist-Demos.
I am not hopeful,but it would be nice to see a resurgence of this type of independent thinking in the 2008 elections

[jetranger7]

Well Get Ready for this one : Word is that Yellow Freight Systems, is going to attempt to Kick-Out the "Teamsters Union" from their Organization, in the Summer of 2008. Supposedly, UPS, is Backing the Decision, probably counting on doing tyhe same thing Yellow Freight is doing, this being the case, the Teamsters are done ! and after the way they been acting in the Midwest Region of the country, with phony, half-azzed contracts, that make no-sense, I hate to say it, but Good Ridence ! They''ll never be what they used to, with the Management they have now over the brothers ! Such a Shame !!!

[myidoncbs]

Without some form of collective bargaining, they can hope for nothing better than to be treated as slaves.

Do the repugs all WANT to be slaves?

What does it tell you about the "working people" of this country when they have turned against their own best interests out of loyalty to a political party that doesn''t give a damm about them?

[myidoncbs]

"Unions became obsolete when the labor laws both at the Federal and State levels were created, They have devolved into nothing more than mob laundering operations."

Really? Who else has a chance of stopping the industries from stealing the pension funds and using it to pay gobs of money to their worthless president and board of directors?

Individual workers, attempting to "negotiate" a contract with a powerful corporation are at a SEVERE disadvantage. Without some form of collective bargaining, they can hope for nothing better than to be treated as slaves.

[knyghtwolf]

Yeah, I would tend to agree with you there lorinkundert, sort of sounds like our present government, circus sideshow along with the mob laundering operation. You could almost say the bush regime is borderline science fiction with a smack of Monday night RAW meets the cartoon network.

[lorinkundert]

Unions became obsolete when the labor laws both at the Federal and State levels were created, They have devolved into nothing more than mob laundering operations.