Former UAW Official: UAW Workers Interests Must Be Defended In Auto Talks

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/6836

Former UAW Official: UAW Workers Interests Must Be Defended In Auto Talks - 09/18/07

By Doug Cunningham

As the UAW negotiates an historic U.S. auto industry labor agreement the company is reportedly pressing hard to get rid of its retiree health care liability with a trust fund called a VEBA. GM also reportedly has floated proposals to freeze cost of living wage increases, create a a two-tier wage system that would pay new hires less and also wants to be free to eliminate as many as 30,000 more jobs. That’s according to former UAW International Executive Board member Jerry Tucker.

: “Why should workers have to bear the brunt of their shifting their capital to China, to India, to the Eastern bloc - the old Eastern bloc in Europe - just to manufacture more money and, in this country, less cars?"

Tucker says if the UAW grants any health care relief the auto companies should be forced to support a single payer national universal health care plan and he says if he were at the bargaining table job one would be defending auto workers’ interests.

: “I don't understand why the UAW isn't making this a quid pro quo for any relief - if there was relief at all at the bargaining table. Defending ourselves would be the ultimate question. It would not be how to help the corporations get out of the ditch they've dug themselves into."

[David Dunham]

1. Simple answer: these companies otherwise close all their US plants

They would make more money if they made all their cars overseas. I hope that does not happen, though.