UAW strikes for fairness (Workers sacrifice while profitable American Axle gives CEO a bonus)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080404/OPINION03/804040309

Friday, April 4, 2008
Ron Gettelfinger: Labor Voices

Workers sacrifice while profitable American Axle gives CEO a bonus

After five weeks on the picket line in the middle of winter, United Auto Workers members in New York and Michigan are as determined as ever to stand up for justice and fairness at American Axle. Workers and their families are fighting to protect U.S. manufacturing jobs and to protect their stake in a company they helped to build from the ground up.

American Axle began in 1994 with five axle plants from General Motors Corp., just as the market for pick-ups and SUVs was about to take off. It was a great time to be in the axle business. But no company could have capitalized on this opportunity without a work force dedicated to world-class quality and productivity.

American Axle had exactly such a work force, made up of UAW members.

Thanks to their hard work, American Axle sales have more than doubled since 1994.

The company has expanded from five U.S. plants to 29 facilities worldwide, with cumulative sales of over $39 billion and cumulate profits of over $900 million.

American Axle is a U.S. manufacturing success story. Company shareholders have been richly rewarded, and so have company executives, including R.E. Dauch, who has earned at least $10.2 million in total compensation for 2007, with an additional bonus to come once the labor dispute has been settled. In fact, while the data is incomplete for 2007, since 1997 Dauch has earned at least $258 million in total compensation. Obviously, this total does not include the value of numerous benefits and perquisites Dauch receives.

The rewards have not been nearly as great for UAW members. Since 1994, in addition to the impact of closing the Buffalo facility, we've lost thousands of jobs at American Axle even as the company expanded overseas. And now workers are being told they must accept pay cuts of at least 50 percent or else our remaining plants will be closed and the rest of our work moved offshore.

Can a profitable company with a positive cash flow give its chief executive a pay raise and still justify cutting hourly wages 50 percent?

FULL story at link.