UAW membership drops below 500,000

[DainBramaged]

United Auto Workers union membership has fallen below 500,000 for the first time since World War II, reflecting the massive restructuring undertaken by Detroit's automakers.

The union reported Friday in a filing with the Labor Department that it had 464,910 members by the end of 2007, compared with 538,448 at the end of 2006. UAW membership peaked in 1979 at 1.5 million but has been dropping ever since.

Mike Smith, director of the Walter P. Reuther Library at Wayne State University in Detroit, said the last time the UAW had fewer than 500,000 members was in 1941. By 1945, UAW membership had surpassed one million.

General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC and their suppliers have cut tens of thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs in the last few years as foreign competition and a weak economy have slowed U.S. auto sales.

All three automakers are currently offering buyouts to their UAW-represented hourly workers. In 2006, more than 67,000 hourly workers took buyouts to leave GM and Ford. Chrysler has said it is trying to cut 21,000 of its 45,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs by 2009.

Harley Shaiken, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who specializes in labor issues, said the UAW has "stopped the bleeding in terms of job losses" and is looking to rebuild.

The union's attempts at organizing North American plants run by Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co. and other Asian and European automakers have been unsuccessful. "The foreign-owned automakers are still in their sights. None of this is going to be easy, but by the same token I wouldn't write the union off," Shaiken said.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila/UAW_membership_drops_below_500_000_03292008.html

Yup, keep losing those manufacturing jobs America, and accept Third world wages and tax breaks to bring more Foreign competition here while denying US a foothold in their countries.

[chixydix]

1. Nowadays unions don't help much of anybody except the guys running the unions.

It's a goddamn shame but it's true.

[DainBramaged]

2. You are wrong and I shouldn't even bother responding to your

reply. Just put you on ignore for total ignorance.

[chixydix]

7. Fine, since you're ignoring my posts you won't see my reply where I

comment on how totally ineffective the corrupt unions as they became starting back in the 1950s failed to protect jobs for MOST of their members. The ones in the clique did okay.

[DainBramaged]

9. Typical right wing bullshit, no specifics, only blather

You're wrong, I waited for your response. And if you were a real Union member, ex or otherwise, you wouldn't have spouted the Reich wing line.

I won't have to see the red X on your name for long.

[Skittles]

12. LOL

REPUKE TALKING POINT :puke:

[readmoreoften]

29. My union didn't fail me, the scabs did.

My union paid for my apartment and health insurance when I was on strike. Without them I'd've been destitute.

[liberal4truth]

37. Teamsters Union just dropped wages for new freight drivers by 10/hr. Whats wrong with that picture?

[Warpy]

3. Have you ever worked in a union job?

I've worked in a lot of them and I've worked in nonunion jobs and even a bad union is better than NO union.

[DainBramaged]

6. It's always the ignorant ones who make statements like that.

Without Unions, there would be child labor in this country, NO health insurance, and slave labor wages, and the Repukes would have it that way.

[Tejas]

17. It's still a pro-union statement

"even a bad union is better than NO union"

Sad but true.

[chixydix]

8. Yes, only because I was forced to and they didn't do a fucking thing for me

except take a bunch of my money. Oh, they collected "death benefit funds" for when one of them croaked...everyone was assessed some amount, I forget how much, and the family got a percentage of it. A bunch of goddamn corrupt Mafia fuckwits, basically.

[DainBramaged]

10. What Union sweetie?? Gee afraid to tell us??

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[JeanGrey]

4. I have to agree. Union Member for 24 years - we went on strike

twice, both times lost more than we gained. The union was in bed with the company, big time. IAM.

[DainBramaged]

5. What Union, be specific, don't paint all unions as bad

because your local sucked.

Why is it the Union haters come out when threads like this are posted? What the fuck has gone wrong with DU??

[ConsAreLiars]

11. People always take one side or the other in the class war.

Some are too stupid or brainwashed to even realize that much. They were once known as the class of subhumans called scabs, now by the term that describes an even lower rung of humanity, the dittoheads.

[ikojo]

30. Unfortunately, many Americans have been fed a steady

diet of Horatio Alger stories. They believe that if they work hard enough, they too could become the CEO and very wealthy. Too many take the side of Wall Street and the bosses when it comes to the class war. What many don't understand or choose not to believe is that for the majority of Americans, one will die in the same class to which one was born.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/06/opinion/06herbert.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

June 6, 2005
The Mobility Myth
By BOB HERBERT

The war that nobody talks about - the overwhelmingly one-sided class war - is being waged all across America. Guess who's winning.

snip

The gap between the rich and everybody else in this country is fast becoming an unbridgeable chasm. David Cay Johnston, in the latest installment of the New York Times series "Class Matters," wrote, "It's no secret that the gap between the rich and the poor has been growing, but the extent to which the richest are leaving everybody else behind is not widely known."

Consider, for example, two separate eras in the lifetime of the baby-boom generation. For every additional dollar earned by the bottom 90 percent of the population between 1950 and 1970, those in the top 0.01 percent earned an additional $162. That gap has since skyrocketed. For every additional dollar earned by the bottom 90 percent between 1990 and 2002, Mr. Johnston wrote, each taxpayer in that top bracket brought in an extra $18,000.

snip

Economic mobility in the United States - the extent to which individuals and families move from one social class to another - is no higher than in Britain or France, and lower than in some Scandinavian countries. Maybe we should be studying the Scandinavian dream.

[JeanGrey]

35. I won't. Neither will any of my siblings. We will all die in a higher

class than we were born. So will our children. Things need improving in America BUT you can make your way up here.

[JeanGrey]

13. I didn't paint "all" unions as bad. I said mine sucked and It did

for over twenty years. I can see why some people would not want to be in a union IF they are treated fairly at their work.

[DainBramaged]

14. You still won't tell us what Union, will you?

I belonged to the Teamsters, UAW, the old Grocery Workers Union (UFCW) which provided health care way back then when the A&P didn't when I was a kid in the 60's, and I am proud of my union membership.

Sorry you aren't, and the fact you WON'T share makes me suspect of your "Union" credentials.

[Tejas]

18. I doubt he cares

if you "believe" or not. I was a member of a union, if you don't believe me either then that's just too bad.

Might be more constructive to chew the fat about the subject at hand instead of throwing insults at present/past union members.

[JeanGrey]

21. I already did in my first post.

Do you not know what "IAM" is?

[lonestarnot]

15. You are a fucking waste of time scab, and I'll bet you'd run to them after not paying dues the first

time you encountered a problem without regard as to how they did or didn't suck. So fuck you.

[chixydix]

20. Nice way to win over people to your side there, bubba.

:eyes:

[JeanGrey]

23. It's very typical, isn't it? Reminds of me some of the people in

the union I walked the picket line with who wanted to slash tires and egg and rock cars.

[readmoreoften]

26. Oh and what did the scabs do? Scabs organized to take my health insurance and my job.

They blocked me us out of social gatherings and called us "selfish scum" while they got a 50% pay raise for crossing the picket line. Give me a FUCKING BREAK. Scabs deserve everything they get. There is nothing lower on this planet than a scab. Scabbing is violent by nature since it directly takes food out of the mouths of families.

Yeah right, you walked the picket line. No one who walks a picket line gives scabs a pass like you do. That's the funniest thing about scabs too! After a strike is over they pretend that they didn't scab because they're cowards!

Your union sucked? So fucking what? What did you do for it? My union sucked. I lost my job. It also did the best it could to help me pay my bills in the meanwhile. Know why I lost my job? It wasn't because my union sucked. It was because low-life scabs broke the strike.

[JeanGrey]

31. Look, you don't know me and you know nothing about me.

You can accept that I was a union member or not. The people crossing the line were SALARIED personnel who aren't in the union, genuis. There is no excuse to hurt them. Give me a break.

[JeanGrey]

32. I'm sorry YOUR union sucked, by the way. Mine did too.

Which is what I said.

[readmoreoften]

25. Pfft. Scabs don't listen to reason, they distort reality to their own self-interest.

Even with the problems I faced within my union, and the difficulties I faced on strike, I'll take a bad union over a good scab any day of the week because there's no such thing as a good scab.

There's no winning people over to doing the right thing. You either get it or you don't. You're either a selfish fuck or a human being.

[JeanGrey]

22. You are so full of shit. I am no scab. Never was and never

would be as long as I was a union member. Take that horseshit elsewhere. Or feel free to put me on "ignore".

[readmoreoften]

27. Sorry I've never met a striking union member with sympathy for scabs.

But hey maybe you were on strike for one day and were in a position where it was impossible to cross the picket line anyway.

[JeanGrey]

33. Are you deaf?: I had no "sympathy for scabs".

These were salaried personnel who were not in the union and are not going to walk a picket line. I have no sympathy for picket line crossers, but I refuse to do property damage and hurt people. Feel free to do so.

[Rosemary2205]

24. Switch to decaf already.

That was bad. I mean really bad.

[chixydix]

39. That's not caffeine, it's strychnine.

:eyes:

[DainBramaged]

42. Being an asshole about Unions here is like being a Democrat on the Freeper boards

Eventually, you get tripped up and get a granite cookie. You've joined your buddy on my ignore list. Your poison isn't worth reading.

[ikojo]

36. When unions are strong all employees, union and non

union benefit. Non union workplaces provide benefits and treat their employees better when there is a fear of unionization or fear a good employee would go to a union affiliated company. Notice with the decline in union membership we have people working all types of jobs with no or few benefits. I suspect that was not the case in the 1950s when union membership was at its peak.

[JeanGrey]

38. I agree. But I fear the time of the union has passed. We have

fucked ourselves with NAFTA and allowing companies breaks to take their business to third world countries or otherwise overseas. THAT shit should have never been allowed. I remember back in '86 when they started "outsourcing" jobs in our company that were always done in house, that it was the beginning of the end, and I was right. Unfortunately, our union was never able to get ANY concessions about outsourcing. We tried in every contract since '86 and a lot of jobs were lost and more go all the time. When I first joined the union in '83 we had 20 thousand members and about 10 thousand salaried at peak. Now there are six thousand salaried and about two thousand union at the same plant.

Now we have illegals to add to the burden. Whenever you have cheap labor, people who will work for hardly anything without benefits, you are screwed.

I consider myself fortunate that I have health insurance (I am on disability until I'm old enough to retire) even though it is pretty expensive for a secondary policy (which you almost have to have with medicare). I'll also get a pension, such as it is, and my husband will draw it for a while after I'm gone which, unfortunately, won't be long. Our home is paid for, our cars are paid for, and I have saved quite a bit over the years. We're a lot better off than many.

[DainBramaged]

41. Why do you and your buddy still remain in this thread bashing Unions

What the fuck is your problem? Is that your mission, bash Unions on DU instead of the Dem candidates? I just put your sorry ass on ignore. You don't like MY Union the UAW, go start your own hate thread.

God made assholes and unfortunately, you are one of them.

[HughBeaumont]

34. Seriously, why are you still here?

Is anything you say NOT a Repuke talking point?

Not to mention your username looks like a slur against the group.

[Blue_Tires]

16. simple plan...cut jobs here, re-hire people in china

i'd be interested to see what the CAW numbers look like as well

[Omaha Steve]

19. I paid in dues last year $500 tax deductible

When I got fired last Feb., my union fought it. They spent $5,000 on me in legal fees. Didn't ask anything. 4 months later the settlement included reinstatement with FULL back benefits.

In 1980 I was fired. Union filed NLRB charges. 3 & 1/2 years later I won my case. Upheld by the St. Louis Court of Appeals.

Case file: http://www.nlrb.gov/shared_files/Board%20Decisions/261/261-38.pdf

8 hour work day. Overtime. Pensions. Vacation. Sick pay. Holidays. Yes unions are one lousy bunch compared to management.

Sarcasm!

[readmoreoften]

28. Former member of the UAW here.

Don't work in a UAW shop anymore, though.

[mvccd1000]

40. While I've heard of experiences with good unions....

...I also grew up in a automotive family (over 200 years of GM experience in my family). As far as the UAW is concerned, the bad far outweighs the good in my experience. We voted no all three times they tried to organize my facility, and I'm not sorry to see their membership dropping.

If you've ever read the fable of The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg, the UAW is analogous to the guy who killed the goose. They could have had a good thing forever, if they hadn't been so greedy that they tried to get it all at once. I hold them largely responsible for the imminent demise of the industry I love.