U.A.W. Wants to Share in Big 3’s Financial Success

[groovedaddy]

DETROIT — As better times return, the United Automobile Workers is not the union it was before Detroit’s carmakers hemorrhaged billions of dollars.

The union is now a part owner of General Motors and Chrysler through a union trust fund, and its members are barred from striking against the two companies over compensation for the next five years. All told, hourly workers gave up pay and benefits worth $7,000 to $30,000 each a year during the downturn, the union estimates.

But while those changes might blur the traditional battle lines between management and union, the incoming president of the U.A.W., Bob King, is making it clear some things are not about to change.

As one automaker, the Ford Motor Company, restores some perks for salaried workers, Mr. King is putting the companies on notice that he expects hourly workers to be given back some of the benefits they surrendered as the bottom lines of all three car companies improve — at least to the extent that management and other stakeholders are rewarded.

The union is expected to ask that some of its givebacks be reversed during contract talks with the carmakers in 2011, when the contract signed in 2007 — and modified last year with more concessions as General Motors and Chrysler approached bankruptcy — expires.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/business/economy/13union.html?th&emc=th

[Omaha Steve]

1. My next post in this forum is about the UAW

K&R.