http://socialistaction.org/uaw-chrysler-partners-retain-inequality/
UAW-Chrysler ‘partners’ retain inequality
Published October 26, 2015. | By Socialist Action.
Nov. 2015 UAW
By BILL ONASCH
The first Tentative Agreement between the UAW leadership and Fiat
Chrysler Automobiles was shot down by the ranks—by a two-to-one margin.
It was the first defeat of a Big Three national TA in a generation. But
while this venting of disappointment was widespread, it was not very
organized or focused. Though an indicated first step, rejection alone is
not a solution. An alternative program needs to be advanced.
Former dissidents, such as those in New Directions and the Auto Caravan,
who once had influence in some Big Three locals, could have played a
role in shaping a policy attractive to the naysayers. But those
oppositionists are now mostly retired—some migrating to sunnier new
locations. The fragmented rejectionist majority could not pull together
a viable alternative on the fly through social media.
At least months of advance preparation on the shop floor around clear
objectives is required. That is the perspective encouraged by the
leadership of more adversarial unions like the Chicago Teachers Union
and National Nurses United. But in the top-down structure of the UAW,
such initiatives have to come from below.
In this absence of a unified opposition, the self-perpetuating
Administration Caucus bureaucracy that has ruled the UAW without
interruption since the days of Walter Reuther was able to recover from a
stinging defeat. After retaining—at members’ expense—a prominent
public-relations firm, they were able to work with their company
“partners” to quickly craft a new deal. It was a grab bag of putative
additional raises for some, spread out over eight years, offset by new
immediate concessions to management. Little, if any, new money was on
the table.
Not seeing credible options, the package was accepted as the best that
can be done. The swing in the second vote was as dramatic as the
previous thumbs-down. Seventy-seven percent of production workers, 72
percent of skilled trades, and 87 percent of salaried workers voted in
favor of the second TA.
Chrysler was the targeted company to set the pattern for contracts with
the much bigger General Motors—which recently announced a record
third-quarter profit—and Ford as well. As this is written, on Oct. 26,
the UAW and GM have reached a tentative four-year contract.
An article from Automotive News opened, “The UAW’s new contract with
Fiat Chrysler will set the pattern for how first General Motors and then
Ford Motor Co. fix the divisive two-tier wage system at their factories,
said sources familiar with the negotiations. The UAW has no plans to
resuscitate Tier 2 hiring caps at GM or Ford, aiming instead for the
approach taken at FCA US that guarantees lower-paid Tier 2 workers an
eight-year ladder of predetermined annual raises until they reach full
wages of $30 an hour, the sources said.”
Downsizing inequality
Many news stories about the new contract proclaimed the second-class
Tier 2—established in the historic give-back 2007 Big Three
contracts—would be eliminated. This is an exaggeration to say the least.
The wage rate of the 43 percent of Chrysler’s UAW workforce in Tier 2,
topping around $19 an hour in the expired contract, will catch up with
the new Top Tier rate of $29+ change—in eight years. Since the contract
just approved will expire in four, that requires faith—perhaps
misplaced—in the company to voluntarily abide by today’s promise in the
next negotiations. At best, it is a lengthy journey to the two rates
coinciding, not merging.
No Tier 2 workers will actually be upgraded to Top Tier when the
differences include not only wages but defined benefit pensions rather
than a 401(k) and better health coverage as well. And, there are other
new reminders of their still inferior status. The new contract increases
the signing bonus for Top Tier by a thousand dollars while Tier 2 gets
nothing additional.
The rejected deal provided bigger profit-sharing payouts to Tier 2; now,
in this regard, they will be equal. Even if all goes as projected, in
eight years Tier 2 will still be second-class members of Unequal Auto
Workers.
Still, a $10 raise, even so spread out, looked attractive to many making
$19 or less. The Wall Street Journal estimated the $25 goal for Tier 2
in the first TA would have increased Chrysler labor costs 10 percent.
Since most of the $4 improvement is back-loaded to the next contract,
the new deal should leave that 10 percent pretty much intact. Currently,
Chrysler labor costs are somewhat lower than GM and Ford and close to
the biggest non-union transplant, Toyota. To the relief of both UAW
president Dennis Williams and Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne, that won’t
change much.
Deleted from the approved TA is any mention of Dennis Williams’
pipe-dream of establishing a health-care co-op covering all employees of
the Big Three. This ill-advised proposal, vaguely mentioned in the first
deal, would be a sort of super-VEBA, like the one that UAW pensioners
got stuck with in 2007. This understandably made many members nervous.
Except for a new emergency-room co-pay, current health benefits remain
unchanged.
But unchanged isn’t so great for Tier 2, who have a six percent co-pay
of sure-to-rise medical expenses. And the much better benefits enjoyed
by the Top Tier are threatened with a steep tax on their so-called
“Cadillac plan”—mandated by Obama’s Affordable Care Act. The UAW should
be working with those unionists in the Labor Campaign for Single-Payer
for Canadian-style health care instead of constantly sacrificing wages
to feed the private insurance robber barons—who are the only winners in
“ObamaCare.”
What workers don’t get
There’s no reinstatement of the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA),
pioneered by the UAW, that protects wages from inflation. For many
years, the formula of annual three percent productivity raises coupled
with COLA made UAW members the highest paid workers in manufacturing.
Top Tier workers will get two three-percent raises under the ratified
contract—their first boost in a decade—and two four-percent lump-sum
payments that don’t get folded into the wage rate. Inflation was one
factor in the 21 percent decline in real wages in the auto industry in
the last available comparison of 2003-2013.
A very big issue for affected workers is the Alternative Work Schedule,
requiring rotation through different shifts of four 10-hour
straight-time days. Not used by GM or Ford, this mean-spirited work
change was solely devised to get 20 hours a day production without
paying overtime rates. Most workers consider it exhausting and unhealthy
and hate the disruption it causes to family and social life.
The Sept. 18 Detroit Free Press ran a story titled “UAW Wins Changes to
Hated FCA Alternative Work Schedule.” But this tempting appetizer was
followed by pretty thin soup:
“The UAW says its new [first] tentative agreement with Fiat Chrysler
includes ‘significant alternative work schedule changes,’ designed to
quell discontent among workers over the schedules. The tentative
agreement, reached Tuesday, would pay workers more for Saturday shifts
and prevent workers from being scheduled on consecutive Fridays.”
That hardly addresses the complaints about the loss of the eight-hour
day, regular shifts and regular days off, much less exhaustion and
safety concerns. There was nothing more in the ratified contract.
And what about jobs?
From World War II to the 1970s the American auto industry was nearly
100 percent unionized in the UAW. UAW membership peaked at 1.5 million
in 1979. Today the number of active working members is about 390,000,
along with more than 600,000 retirees who receive pensions and
health-care payments negotiated by the UAW. Membership at Big Three
plants has dropped 42 percent in just the last decade. Only 15 percent
of parts-makers are unionized. A substantial number of today’s UAW
members are outside the auto industry. For example, I pay dues to UAW
Local 1981—the National Writers Union.
Much of the membership loss has been due to automation, outsourcing, and
offshoring. But perhaps a bigger factor has been the game-changing rise
of Asian and European-owned “transplants” building cars, SUVs, and light
trucks in the USA—and taking nearly half the share of U.S. production
away from the Big Three. Counting parts suppliers and transplants, the
auto industry still employs 900,000 workers. The UAW has failed to
organize any transplant start-ups.
The UAW strategy since the 1980s has purportedly been all about jobs.
Saving jobs was the rationale for giveback bargaining.
Chrysler took advantage of unrestricted Tier 2 to go on a hiring spree,
adding about 15,000 workers in the last few years. That’s coming to a
halt. The union summary of the new contract projects adding 2959 jobs at
some plants over the next four years while eliminating 2856 at others.
That means a whopping 103 new jobs are expected. There has been no
change in plans to move Dodge Dart and Chrysler 200 work to Mexico—where
wages are about 20 percent of Tier 2.
Full-time adequate staffing has also been eroded since the introduction
of temp workers to cover peaks of short-term absences and individual
vacation days on Mondays, Fridays, and weekends. The temps currently
start at $17 an hour and can earn up to $22. They have truncated health
benefits, pay union dues, and are first in line for regular entry-level
openings.
Once given an inch, the bosses always try to take a kilometer. Not
included in the highlight summary of the TA provided to the ranks was a
substantial new concession to the company—allowing management to use
temps every day, with the potential of increasing temp share of all work
hours from four to eight percent. This would get Chrysler close to
nonunion Toyota.
After the rejection of the first TA, both union and management warned
there wasn’t any more money available for improvements. Clearly, union
bargainers granted Chrysler the ability to double temp usage to help
offset the cost of ballyhooed raises for Tier 2 workers.
But that’s not all they gave away. Under the newly approved contract,
new temp workers will start at less than $16 and top out at $19.28 an
hour. (The national average wage of private-sector production workers is
currently $21.08.) They also lose profit sharing that they would have
received in the rejected first TA.
And the doubling of temp share of work means these workers will have a
longer wait for regular Tier 2 openings. There was similar chiseling on
wage rates for some MOPAR and Axle workers. These givebacks pay Fiat
Chrysler today for promised gains for some workers eight years down the
road. It is a fresh reenactment of the parable of lions being led by asses.
Lessons from history
A key historical turning point in the movement that led to the launching
of the CIO United Auto Workers was the 1934 Toledo Auto-Lite strike. It
took place at a time of mass unemployment. Class lines were quickly and
indelibly drawn, and the whole city chose sides.
Instead of scabbing, most jobless workers followed the lead of the
socialist-led Lucas County Unemployed League, and thousands stood with
the union in defiance of court injunctions and even a mobilization of
the National Guard. Two strikers were killed, dozens injured, and many
arrested before victory was achieved.
The Toledo unemployed made such sacrifices because they saw the union as
a broad social movement that benefited the working class as a whole. The
Toledo example was a precursor to the later solidarity generated by the
Flint sit-downs and other battles that transformed the auto industry
from low-wage sweatshops to what became for a time the most rewarding
jobs in manufacturing.
As we again see revealed in the Chrysler bargaining, the polar opposite
class-collaborationist perspective of the ruling Administration Caucus
has instead undermined the most basic solidarity even within the ranks
of the UAW. They betray not only the union’s proud heritage but also
present dues-payers. Whether their personal intentions are good or bad,
they have paved the road to industrial purgatory.
It will take more than prayers of others to escape to a better
destination. It begins with the UAW ranks’ asserting democratic control
of their union. And in all industries, it will require the broader
working-class majority to reclaim our stolen class identity and revive
class-struggle strategy and tactics on the job, in the community—and in
the political arena.
Photo: Chrysler workers at end of shift at Warren, Ohio, truck assembly
plant. Bill Pugliano / Getty Images.
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Posted in Labor. | Tagged Chrysler, UAW, unions.
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