Autoworkers Under the Gun
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Autoworkers Under the Gun

A Shop-Floor View of the End of the American Dream

Gregg Shotwell

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eBook - ePub

Autoworkers Under the Gun

A Shop-Floor View of the End of the American Dream

Gregg Shotwell

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Workers' rights are not defined by law or contract. Workers' rights are defined by struggle.

Gregg Shotwell’s Live Bait & Ammo newsletter chronicled the outrages and absurdities of corporate managers, exposed union leaders who acted in "partnership” with employers, and sounded the alarm about the devastating effects of auto industry job losses and union concessions. LB&A fliers grew legs of their own, distributed by rank-and-file workers in auto plants across the United States and cited by industry analysts. This collection spans a decade of autoworker resistance—and it’s a call to action for a new generation of workers coming of age in recession-wracked America.

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Chapter One
The Delphi Spinoff and the Lords of Lean
Between 1990 and 1998 there were strikes at twenty-two General Motors plants. Most were successful struggles against mandatory overtime and production issues, forcing the company to hire new workers at many of the struck plants.
The showdown between the company and the union came in the summer of 1998 over GM’s plans to disinvest from two parts plants in Flint, Michigan, where the UAW first showed its power in the famous 1936–37 sit-down strikes. Because those plants made parts used in most GM vehicles, production across North America came to a halt. As labor journalist and author Kim Moody noted, “The union inflicted enormous damage on the company, which lost almost three billion dollars in profits and twelve billion dollars in sales during the fifty-four-day conflict. Strikes in just two plants had closed twenty-seven of GM’s twenty-nine assembly plants and over one hundred parts plants in the United States, Mexico, and Canada.”1
The UAW’s 1998 Constitutional Convention in Las Vegas was held in the midst of the strike, and UAW president Steve Yokich vowed to step up the pressure on the company to protect the jobs of workers in GM parts plants and fight outsourcing and downsizing. Nevertheless, the UAW settled the strike when GM agreed to return equipment to the struck plants and invest in new production, leaving wider issues unaddressed.
But soon after the agreement that saved jobs in two parts plants, GM announced that it would spin off its entire parts division as Delphi Automotive Systems. This chapter includes Ammos that cover rank-and-file activists’ fight against the spinoff and the struggle against Delphi’s demands for job cuts and lower-tier wages for new hires.
UAW Bargaining Convention: End the Silence
(March 1999)
I drove to the Bargaining Convention with one concern in mind: the Delphi spinoff. No single event in my twenty years as an autoworker has caused so much anxiety and disruption. Is it the beginning of a calculated dismemberment of the union?
The big question on everyone’s mind is what will the UAW do, and why haven’t we heard anything? The “no news is good news” slogan does not apply. We got the news. It’s bad. We’re waiting for a response from the UAW. The cold silence coming out of Solidarity House is ominous.
As I drove to Detroit I felt angry. Angry at the silence of the International UAW. Angry at the lack of action and direction. Angry about capitulation and concession. Angry because the International UAW seemed so remote and unresponsive.
Two thoughts ran through my mind: When leaders are ethically but not legally obligated, they will take advantage of you for their own selfish ends. Then, they will demean you in order to justify their behavior and suppress their guilt.
UAW Bargaining Con, Day One: Stop the Spinoff
UAW International president Stephen Yokich opened the convention by saying, “If we don’t address things that face us honestly and up front, we have a real problem.” I’ve been taking notes long enough to know that remark will come back to haunt him. Then he claimed he had no prior knowledge of the Delphi spinoff. Where’s he been? On the shop floor we’ve been talking about it since 1995. “And that’s what pisses me off about GM,” he said. Yokich doesn’t tell us anything. That’s what pisses us off about him. Yokich revealed that when GM decided to sell off American Axle, they came to the International beforehand and together they “worked out a pattern agreement.” An agreement that dislocated hundreds of families.
He said modular assembly was “another word for outsourcing.” He hadn’t addressed the modular issue until Suman Bohm confronted him at a UAW subcouncil2 meeting and former UAW Local 599 president Dave Yettaw published an article in the Flint Journal about the damaging consequences to working families and their communities. Up to that point, Yokich had been silent on the issue. Rick Haglund, a syndicated columnist, said, “Union silence is considered by management to be a positive sign.” I believe it went further than tacit approval. The Lordstown and Lansing plants had already begun whipsawing (the practice of locals competing against other locals to make concessions). Does anyone believe that Yokich was unaware of those negotiations?
He said we needed to make outsourcing a “strikable issue.” Delphi is the largest maker of modular automotive systems in the world and the spinoff is the most massive outsourcing plan in history. So when do we strike? He said we needed to find ways to restrict overtime. Yokich claimed, “A forty-hour (workweek) restriction would create 86,000 jobs in motor vehicle assembly alone.” So what are we waiting for? He railed against the corporations for moving jobs overseas, but still no mention of how the UAW would confront the Delphi spinoff.
There were about two thousand delegates and an army of UAW International Reps jammed into Cobo Hall. Microphones were spaced throughout the hall for delegates to address the assembly. While International Reps speaking from the podium were always clearly audible above the din of the crowd, speakers from the floor were difficult to hear. Many of the delegates called on to speak were merely lapdogs for the Cooperative Caucus. I won’t repulse you with alliterations of their lapping sounds.
It was a welcome relief when Suman Bohm approached the mic. Suman is the bargaining chair at the GM assembly plant in Delaware, and a cochair of New Directions, a dissident caucus that opposes union-management partnership. Her passion and courage sharpen conviction like oil and stone.
She spoke out against outsourcing. She demanded the International “put the brakes on modular assembly.” She said it “would kill us” and was nothing more than a “union-busting” scheme. She denounced GM for closing Buick City and sending the work to China. “Production in China is designated for export to America.”
Mark Paine, from an engine plant in Cleveland, said, “Despite overall job growth, union jobs are disappearing.” He denounced whipsawing. He said his local jumped through all the hoops, “embraced the Modern Operating Agreement and every other program they came up with,” and now they’re “scheduled to be phased out.” It was a familiar refrain: the cooperation strategy is a failure. We aren’t partners, we’re rubes. We’ve been conned into turning tricks for promises while corporate executives laugh at our antics.
When Dave Yettaw took the floor, I could sense the hair standing up on Yokich’s neck. Yokich was bristling before Dave ever opened his mouth. Yettaw, who came out of retirement to lead the delegation from Flint Local 599, is a resourceful challenger and a prominent leader in New Directions. Unlike Yokich, he doesn’t resort to angry outbursts and profanity to make his point. You may not agree with Yettaw, but one should respect his willingness to stand up for what he believes. That’s a lot more than you can say for most of the tail-wagging, wet-nosed lapdogs that pass for convention delegates.
Yettaw calmly asked that GM be made to “live up to the 95 percent job security agreement that was negotiated three years ago.” He warned that modular assembly would be devastating to all of us and would result in “outsourcing on a scale we’ve never seen before.” He advocated for temporary workers who pervade the industry. He said, “This union stopped [former Chrysler CEO] Lee Iacocca from spinning off Accustar, and we can stop Delphi and Visteon from being spun off, too.”
Dave Koscinski from Local 1866 said:
My members are living the fears of the unknown every day as Delphi is spun off from GM. Brothers and sisters are leaving at an alarming rate through retirement and transfers, causing family hardships. Delphi counts on bargaining a contract that calls for lower wages and benefits, including a two-tier wage and benefit package. Management says the spinoff will be good for everyone. I don’t believe it will be good for the UAW. It will divide the parts sector from the assembly sector, thus reducing our bargaining leverage. I support Steve Yokich when he said that GM must retain majority interest in Delphi. We must stop the trend of spinoffs and sales. I urge the UAW to take a hard line against GM and Delphi and all the other spinoffs and sales.
I sensed a raw nerve in the crowd. They’d been pushed around too long. They were anxious about outsourcing, modular assembly, and downsizing. The atmosphere was ripe for a campaign to stop the Delphi spinoff.
Willy Hubbard, president of Local 550, stepped to the mic. His voice sounded like the howling wind off Lake Michigan we call The Wolf. The UAW has negotiated positions to “give us a voice in quality, health and safety, and benefit decisions. One of the things that disturbs me the most is that some of these appointees think they are CEOs of the union.”
It was eerie. Cobo Hall was quiet as a church when he spoke.
“We have to return the respect to the floor and remind them they are union reps, not CEOs. These programs were designed to give members an equal voice. The only way we can make sure we live the life as well as work the life of union is by voting for appointees.” His speech hit the floor like a cluster bomb. A number of appointees had to be evacuated on stretchers. But they had only fainted.
I’d never spoken at a convention before, or to such a large crowd. It’s scary, but I had to take a chance. I thought, I’ll keep it short and to the point. I waved my Local 2151 sign in the air. Yokich called on me.
When a delegate steps up to the mic, their image is projected onto two giant video screens. I looked like the fifty-foot man. I felt like stomping down to the Renaissance Center and kicking some corporate butt. Instead, I made a short, impromptu speech:
Brother Yokich, you compared American Axle to the Delphi spinoff. But there is a difference. American Axle was sold. Delphi will be owned and controlled by the exact same group of people. It’s a paper shuffle, not a real transfer of assets. Workers at Delphi see the spinoff proceeding full speed ahead, but we do not see or hear the opposition of the UAW. The UAW’s silence and lack of visible resistance to the spinoff is perceived as consent. As a result many workers are being scared into early retirement or hasty transfers that destabilize families and disrupt communities. If the spinoff of Delphi is successful, other spinoffs will follow and an undertow of competitive forces will shatter our solidarity and shred the principle of pattern bargaining. Stop the Delphi spinoff in its tracks.
Brother Yokich said, “Next.”
Then Suman Bohm got the floor again. She said, “We are losing tens of thousands of jobs to outsourcing because outsourcing language in our National Agreement is too weak. The language is so full of pro-company loopholes that the company could be brain-dead and still get away with taking our jobs. In the ’99 contract we must make outsourcing a strikable issue on the local level. We have to get away from two-tier wages, and make sure all new hires are brought up to par after ninety days, not three years. We have to help our brothers and sisters in the parts sector.” She explained that union density has fallen from 75 percent to 15 percent in the parts sector. “This is ridiculous. We have to help them get what they deserve, which is wages and benefits equal to our own.” Suman doesn’t pull any punches.
Edward Mosley, a big man from Local 34 in Atlanta, said, “We are closing. . . . The governor offered GM incentives to keep us, but GM said it’s not about money. So this is about us. Wherever we go we’re going to be union. We’re not going to go down without a fight.” I didn’t know it then but two days l...

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