Blue Collar Workers Turn Back on Unions

MARYSVILLE-- For more than a month, workers at a small auto supply plant outside Port Huron have fought bitterly to keep the United Auto Workers from organizing their shop.

The blue-collar denizens at Schefenacker Vision Systems USA occasionally picket outside the factory -- carrying homemade signs with slogans like "UAW Kills Jobs" and "Proud to be union free."

Union resistance efforts are nothing out of the ordinary in Georgetown, Ky., Canton, Miss., or any other Southern town where foreign-owned auto plants are popping up.

But such passionate opposition from Michigan factory workers, many of whom grew up in hard-core UAW families, is something else again.

It speaks to a growing skepticism and sometimes outright distain of a union that historically inspired unflinching loyalty from members and fear from management.

On Web sites and in grassroots meetings, UAW dissidents and critics are loudly questioning whether the union is willing and able to fight back at a time of falling wages, layoffs and globalization.

"The partnership and teamwork espoused by unions and management has been detrimental to union members," said Gregg Shotwell, a UAW worker who writes an Internet column called Live Bait & Ammo and is a member of Soldiers of Solidarity, a UAW splinter group.

Shotwell, who works at Delphi's Coopersville plant, personifies the dissident movement. He's informed, media-savvy and pragmatic.

He believes in labor solidarity, but like many of the workers at Schefenacker, he questions the resolve of the UAW. "I'm definitely pro-union," Shotwell said, "but I can understand the concerns of those workers who don't want the UAW in their shop."

The UAW has fought a mostly losing battle in recent years to hold onto members and organize new factories. The union has fewer than 650,000 members today, down from 1.5 million in 1980.

Some of this decline was inevitable as productivity allowed auto companies to build more cars with fewer people. And UAW President Ron Gettelfinger has earned praise from many quarters for standing up for workers while recognizing the union must change with the times.

But many workers wonder whether compromise only begets more compromise. In 2003, the UAW agreed to allow Delphi Corp. to hire new workers at a lower pay scale. It was a bitter pill seen as necessary to save jobs.

Two years later, Delphi wants to cut worker pay by 60 percent, radically pare benefits and cut 24,000 of 34,000 union jobs in the United States. For Delphi workers who expected to receive top-class pay and benefits for life after the company was spun off from General Motors Corp. in 1999, the demands are unthinkable.

Since Delphi filed for bankruptcy in October, Web sites run by dissident UAW members such as Soldiers of Solidarity, Future of the Union and Disgruntled Autoworker have been deluged with traffic from angry rank-and-file union members, say the Web site operators, who are mostly union workers.

Not only do they blame Delphi Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert S. "Steve" Miller, but also they blame union leaders for not doing more to prevent the dire situation.

"Without question, there is rising dissension. I expect it will become more vocal," said Robert Chiaravalli, a principal at consulting firm Strategic Labor and Human Resources in West Bloomfield, who follows labor relations in the auto industry.

So far, UAW leaders have not tried to quiet the dissidents. Gettelfinger has told reporters that UAW members are free to meet and discuss events without sanctions. The UAW International declined to comment further.

Workers have staged rallies outside Delphi plants in Flint, Grand Rapids and Kokomo, Ind., where critics slam both UAW leaders and the auto supplier. Some intend to picket outside the North American International Auto Show in Detroit on Jan. 8, the first day of the auto show's media preview.

Many of the Web sites are calling for a work slowdown at Delphi plants, a move that's neither been endorsed nor discouraged by UAW leaders, and some haven't ruled out wildcat strikes, which could disrupt Michigan's already-ailing economy.

Watching all this unfold, many workers at Schefenacker wanted nothing to do with the union.

"The UAW will sell you out if it suits their needs," said Laura Dickinson, a Schefenacker assembler who has been a UAW member twice in previous jobs.

Her father and brother have been UAW members and are urging her to keep the union out of her workplace. "We got it good here, the management listens and we have a fair wage," Dickinson said.

"Why do we need the UAW?" she asked. "When push comes to shove, (the UAW) sided with management and workers lost their jobs and the work went overseas."

Most of Schefenacker's 750 Marysville workers assemble rear-view mirrors and earn between $8 and $14 an hour. The plant is a unit of Esslingen, Germany-based Schefenacker AG, which has facilities in Tennessee, Europe, Mexico and India.

Hi-lo driver Joe Farnsworth says his father, a current UAW member, often blasts the union's leaders.

"They got fat and lazy and let workers become that way too," Farnsworth said. "And then, people wonder why these jobs go to China. Maybe they were necessary like in the '40s, but now it just doesn't seem like a good idea."

Harley Shaiken, a labor professor at the University of California, Berkeley, says frustration is growing among autoworkers in general.

"Some of that anger is aimed at unions, some at companies and some of it is going in a lot of directions," he said.

He added that most workers in the auto supply sector still want to be UAW members.

Much of the Internet chatter by dissident UAW rank-and-file workers focuses on wage and benefit cuts.

Last week, UAW leaders outlined a tentative agreement with Ford Motor Co. that would shift more health care costs to thousands of workers and retirees and save the automaker an estimated $850 million a year.

A similar agreement between the UAW and General Motors Corp. was approved by 61 percent of union members in October.

Some have suggested the relatively narrow margin reveals a groundswell of discontent.

Laid-off GM employee Doug Hanscom said e-mails and comments posted on his Web site -- disgruntledautoworker.com -- have more than doubled in recent weeks, though he doesn't precisely track the number of visitors.

As for Schefenacker, the workers seeking to keep the UAW out of their shop are claiming victory. Last week, the union canceled a vote at the factory to determine whether it could represent workers.

"We are very happy," said Bill Bernardo, a Schefenacker worker who opposed the UAW. "Let's hope we can keep working now."

As Frederick "Rick" Dubinsky, the hard-driving former chairman of United's pilots union, once said: "We don't want to kill the golden goose. We just want to choke it by the neck until it gives us every last egg," the relationship between unions and the companies they work for is “What can you do for me now.”

Unfortunately, years of union benefits piling on union benefits have made many of the companies they work for unviable. For instance, if Ford wants to lay off union workers, they still must 90% of their salaries and benefits for years. To unplug a computer in the Philadelphia Convention Center requires that a union electrician does the work (the actual unplugging). SEPTA union employees pay not one dime in co-pays or deductibles for their medical benefits and are willing to shut down the entire mass transit system in Philadelphia, indefinitely, to keep it that way.

When companies can not make a profit or compete because they are being squeezed for every golden egg, they have two options. Either go out of business or go to areas where unions are not as strong. This used to mean going to the mostly nonunionized Southern United States, where for the last 20 years every major automobile manufacturer has chosen to build new manufacturing plants, but now means to go overseas in search of the most competitive place to do business.

Management is not innocent, they have created this mess. They have made many unwise decisions of putting short term profits over the long term health of their companies. In the same vein, they have also agreed to outrageous union contracts because the bills and heartburn for them would come due on some else’s watch in the future.

Now the bills are coming due. And all the union iron clad contracts mean nothing if the company they work for goes out of business. Just ask the workers of steel and airline companies. And ask their retirees. All wish that the company they work for or retired from was a healthy and profitable company.

Unions need to focus on how they can make the companies they work for as strong as possible. This is the only way to keep union jobs, pay and benefits around for the long run. And that doesn’t mean massive pay cuts. Flexibly in work rules, retraining for new jobs when technology changes the old jobs, plugging in and using membership brains/experiences to make the company more profitable are all foreign concepts in many union shops. Their company’s future is their future. For instance, when union workers in Japan go on strike, they wear arm bands that proclaim “On Strike” as they continue to work. They understand that to cause unneeded financial damage to the company they work for, in these days of global competition, is one way to lose their jobs forever.

Unions also need to get out of politics. All of the major unions are strong supporters (both in money from mandatory union dues and “forced” volunteers) of the most liberal of democrat candidates. They have publicly taken positions of being pro-abortion, anti-gun and anti-tax cut (among a plethora of other social issues). None of these issues has anything remotely to do with how a union operates. But it serves to isolate unions from over half the population of America who want nothing to do with them just based on their political stands on these controversial issues. Many people actively avoid buying union made products because they feel they are financing their political enemies.

The union’s heritage is of the craftsman guilds. When you hired a craftsman, you knew you were getting value – someone who was trained, knew what they were doing and did the job right. Today, hiring a union person to do a job is synonymous for expensive, inflexible, sloppy work and belligerence. That is the image that needs to be changed for unions to flourish – what can we do to provide value.

Regards,

2banana

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