GM & UAW International screws the workers again: No Vote Allowed on Half Wages

[Hannah Bell]

The United Auto Workers have signed an agreement to let General Motors pay half wages to 40 percent of its employees at a suburban Detroit assembly plant. The “Tier 2” workers would make roughly $14 working alongside so-called “legacy” or Tier 1 workers making the current production wage, about $28.

GM and the UAW apparently learned a lesson from a recent defeat at an Indianapolis stamping plant, where workers voted 457-96 not to accept half pay. Members at the Lake Orion, Michigan, plant were not allowed to vote on their new wages.

Instead, they were told, the germ of the idea had been included in the national contract ratified in 2009 when GM was on the verge of bankruptcy and seeking government help. The national contract contained language saying the UAW would help GM produce a small car profitably by “looking for innovative ways to staff the plant,” said Mike Dunn, shop chair at UAW Local 5960. Lake Orion was chosen and is now being retooled to produce the subcompact Aveo and compact Verano.

At a large October 3 union meeting, workers were told they could not vote but would have options. The first 800-900 production workers called back would work at the full wage and benefits. The rest of the 1,588-person workforce could come back as Tier 2 workers (with full benefits), wait for an eventual Tier 1 opening created by retirement, or hope to get hired at another GM plant elsewhere....

Nick Waun said low-seniority workers like him had been “lied to for an entire year. They repeatedly told us ‘there’s no way you can be booted down to two-tier wages.’ We sat waiting for an entire year to go back to work, and they spring this on us at the last minute.”

http://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2010/10/no-vote-allowed-half-wages-detroit-area-auto-plant


Ahem, folks: Racheting ALL autoworkers' wages down to $14/hour or less IS THE OFFICIAL POLICY IN OPERATION. BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY.


Everyone who is fed up and wants to be heard, be at the rally at Solidarity House on October 16 from noon to 6 p.m. We are gathering to show support for our brothers and sisters affected by the agreement at Orion and to show the "leadership" who they work for and the true meaning of the word Solidarity!!! Let them know we are done giving and expect them to do the job they were put in office to do...represent the dues paying members!! And also to find out why they voted themselves a raise at the convention in June and then allowed a pay cut for tier 1 employees at Lake Orion. WE ARE THE UNION!

http://www.factoryrat.com/factoryrat/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=13305


Solidarity House. 8000 E. Jefferson Ave. Detroit Michigan 48214. TEL: [phone]

[Hannah Bell]

1. UAW International leadership "selected", not elected

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1948870,00.html


Jerry Tucker, a former member of the UAW board, says the current practice is outmoded and fundamentally anti-democratic. Tucker has actively campaigned to allow member voting in such elections. "It might not change the outcome. But it would force the leadership to become more accountable," he says.

As it now stands, the UAW presidency is basically decided by the vote of a 13-member board as well as certain union officers who privately caucus — staff members are excluded. King waged a savvy campaign for the presidency, promising to address the priorities of each board member, according to sources familiar with the campaign.

[Hannah Bell]

2. 60/40 Solidarity Forever

When the 60/40 union's inspiration through the 60% of workers' blood shall run,
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun;
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of 60%,
But the 60/40 union makes us 60/40 strong.

CHORUS:
60/40 Solidarity forever,
60/40 Solidarity forever,
60/40 Solidarity forever,
For the 60/40 union makes us 60/40 strong.

Is there aught we hold in 60/40 common with the greedy parasite,
Who would lash us into 40% serfdom and would 40% crush us with his might?
Is there anything left to us but to 60% organize and 60% fight?
For the 60/40 union makes us 60% strong.

Chorus

It is we who plowed the prairies; built the cities where they trade;
Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad laid;
Now 40% stand outcast and 40% starving midst the wonders we have made;
But the 60/40 union makes us 60% strong.

Chorus

All the world that's owned by idle drones is 60% ours and ours alone.
We have laid the wide foundations; built it skyward stone by stone.
It is 60% ours, not to slave in, but to 60% master and to own.
While the 60/40 union makes us strong.

Chorus

They have taken untold millions that they never toiled to earn
in Solidarity House and the corporate board rooms,
But without 60% our brain and muscle not a single wheel can turn.
We can break their haughty power, gain 60% of our freedom when we learn
That the 60/40 union makes us 60% strong.

Chorus

In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold,
Greater than the might of armies, magnified 60% of a thousand-fold.
We can bring to birth a new 60/40 world from the ashes of the old
For the 60/40 union makes us 60% strong.

[Abq_Sarah]

3. Whoa

I didn't realize the membership wasn't allowed to vote for their President.

[Hannah Bell]

4. Can't have a collaborationist company union if the rank & file gets to elect the leadership.

Maybe so, but the strange thing is that UAW members don't get to formally express their feelings about King. For more than 60 years, the UAW's top leadership has blocked attempts to permit union members to vote directly for the union presidency. Rather, as the UAW's new designated nominee, King has the support of the union executive board, which has picked the UAW presidents since the late 1940s through series of closed caucuses.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1948870,00.html#ixzz11kNXOAM8


There's a reason UAW membership has been declining since the 70s & has been forced into increasingly sell-out contracts -- the most recent of which is no strikes for 3 or 4 years, i forget which.

They're going to use that provision to rachet everyone's wages down to $12-$15/hour & take away benefits. It's already going on, site by site.

And according to members, there's no way to remove these assholes that voted themselves raises while they're collaborating in cutting their members' wages in half -- AFTER the members already took concessions in the phony "bailout".

[Abq_Sarah]

5. So the only way to reform

Is to lose enough membership that it forces the leadership to change?

There's got to be a better way.

[Hannah Bell]

6. oh, they're trying to organize mexico to run the same scam. & walmart-type workers in

the us to keep the dues rolling in.

plus they control the strike fund which they never use & the veba fund & get the profits off those.

when the bailout made "the union" a gm owner, that basically means the leadership of the international, not the workforce.

meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

company unionism is a dead-end.

on edit: which is why the right wing's constant invoking of the evil auto union is so hysterically funny. right-wing leaders know it's a lie; right-wing followers are idiots.

[Abq_Sarah]

8. Well

It does sound kind of evil to me... but not in the way they think.

[Sherman A1]

9. Well, You can have a collaborationist set of Union

officers even in a union that the members elect directly. They can certainly be voted out, but it can and does exist.

[Hannah Bell]

10. oh, i agree. i was just smart-mouthing.

[Hannah Bell]

12. kik

[Hannah Bell]

11. history..

In the first 12 years of its existence, from 1935 to 1947, the UAW knew a real political
life, with conventions held every year – sometimes twice a year, with fights on the convention
floor over the direction the union should take, and with caucuses formed around some of those
differences in the fights for union office. On the political level, there was a wide range of views,
above all in the period when there were fights over the no-strike pledge imposed by the
government during World War II, a pledge that much of the leadership pushed, but the ranks
ignored. But whatever political problems existed – and many did – at the end of the war there
was still a great vitality and internal union life in the UAW.

With the coming of the McCarthy period witch-hunt and with the aid of the bourgeois
state, an enforcement apparatus was eventually imposed on the UAW to discipline the ranks. The
purges of the militants, who only a decade before had built the union, were already beginning in
1947, when Walter Reuther won re-election in the last fully contested election. That election was
marked by vicious red-baiting coming from the Reuther camp. The Reuther forces moved over
the next four years to establish their stranglehold over the union – expelling militants from the
union, taking over local unions from which they couldn’t expel the militants, working in
collusion with the companies as they fired militants, and encouraging anti-communist gangs,
which literally dragged militants out of some plants during work hours, giving companies the
pretext to fire them.

Stemming from this activity, Reuther established the enforcement apparatus that
eventually came to be known as “the Administration Caucus.” That shadowy apparatus, little
talked about in the plants, has controlled the UAW up to this day, holding down every top office
in the International and almost all the positions in the regions for the last 62 years, dictating to
local officers. Since that Caucus fastened its grip on the union, there have been only four
challenges to its choice for UAW president...

But the most notable attack by the Administration Caucus came
in the summer of 1973, a year in which the plants simmered with wildcats. The top union
apparatus sent a 1000-member goon squad, fully armed with baseball bats and iron pipes and
with a few handguns ostentatiously in evidence, to attack picket lines and crush a wildcat strike
that had shut down Chrysler’s Mack Avenue Stamping plant.

With the support of the
International Union, Chrysler very publicly discharged 91 workers and disciplined over a
hundred more, putting an end to the wave of wildcats that had simmered all summer long. The
UAW leadership moved again the next year to break a wildcat strike that broke out at Dodge
Truck in support of a fired steward and several other activists.

The centerpiece of that action was
the “mobile court,” an open collaboration between the union and the state apparatus. A union
official drove a flat-bed truck, from which a circuit court judge ordered the immediate arrest of
any picketer who didn’t move away from the gates.

And union officials pointed out the fired
steward, whom the judge denounced and ordered arrested. Then in 1976 came the GM
Fleetwood strike, called originally by the shop committee after the president and another local
officer were fired. After a two-day shut-down, the Administration Caucus sent regional and
international reps to control each plant gate. With weapons in evidence, they threatened violence
to all those who didn’t go in, helping to end the strike. Almost 500 workers were given some
kind of discipline for that strike, including 10 permanent discharges, in a deal cut by the
International.

Anger by the ranks, who again could not touch the top leaders sitting in Solidarity House,
focused on local officers. During 1978 and 1979, half of all incumbent local officers in Chrysler
plants, for example, were thrown out in local elections...

By the time the “Big 3” auto companies began to demand outright concessions in 1979,
the attack by the apparatus on the ranks had been reinforced by the first wave of unemployment
in 1974-75, and then by the vast increase in unemployment and plant closings during the severe
1979-81 recession...

http://www.soldiersofsolidarity.com/UAWHistory.pdf

[Romulox]

15. WHO is the union collaborating with, Hannah? Be specific, please?

:hi:

[Hannah Bell]

20. gm. sorry you think it's so funny.

[Romulox]

26. It's not funny. It's REALITY. I'm sorry that the facts don't square with your ideology. nt

[Hannah Bell]

28. yes, reality is that GM is screwing its workers, glad you agree.

[Romulox]

30. It's like a childish game or something..."No--YOU'RE it!" nt

[Hannah Bell]

7. UAW expands drive to cut auto workers’ pay

United Auto Workers officials walked into a local union meeting Sunday afternoon in Lake Orion, Michigan and announced that they had agreed to a 50 percent wage cut for workers with less than 11 years seniority at GM’s assembly plant in the Detroit suburb.

UAW Local 5960 officials told the shocked workers that they would not be permitted to vote on the wage cut because “general language” in the 2009 labor agreement allowed GM and the UAW to implement “innovative labor agreement provisions” at factories producing small cars. Any workers who refused to take the wage cut, they said, would be without a job and would have to add their name to the list of thousands of laid-off workers seeking a transfer to another GM plant.

According to union officials, at least 500 workers―around 40 percent of the factory’s 1,300 workers―will be paid $14 an hour. Up to now, the UAW and GM have imposed the lower wage only on new-hires, and this has been limited to 20 percent of the national workforce. Media commentators and industry analysts hailed the deal as a “landmark” agreement that paved the way for cut-rate wages not only in the small car sector, but throughout the industry.

UAW Local 5960 Shop Chairman Mike Dunn enthusiastically praised the agreement, saying, “It worked out―we’re keeping jobs in America.” For the UAW, “keeping jobs in America” means keeping the dues money flowing into its coffers, even if the workers are reduced to poverty and end up losing their homes, their savings and the ability to send their children to college. The take for the UAW from the Lake Orion plant will be upwards of three-quarters of a million dollars annually.

Unlike the “old UAW,” King said, the “new UAW” would not defend contract provisions that made the corporations “uncompetitive.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/pers-o07.shtml

[Omaha Steve]

13. I'd love to be at this gathering

K&R! I just posted the a much different version of this in LBN about new hires.

Everyone who is fed up and wants to be heard, be at the rally at Solidarity House on October 16 from noon to 6 p.m. We are gathering to show support for our brothers and sisters affected by the agreement at Orion and to show the "leadership" who they work for and the true meaning of the word Solidarity!!! Let them know we are done giving and expect them to do the job they were put in office to do...represent the dues paying members!! And also to find out why they voted themselves a raise at the convention in June and then allowed a pay cut for tier 1 employees at Lake Orion. WE ARE THE UNION!

http://www.factoryrat.com/factoryrat/modules.php?name=F...


Solidarity House. 8000 E. Jefferson Ave. Detroit Michigan 48214. TEL: [phone]

[Cal Carpenter]

16. LOL

I just replied to your LBN post and was afraid I'd get criticized for no source or links for my comment but it's good to see you're already aware.

Solidarity!

[Romulox]

14. It's worth pointing out that the party demanding concessions (GM) is being run by the Obama admin.

The OP can't/won't engage with that point.

[Hannah Bell]

23. "Being run by" - is that so? You mean it's Obama who's decided to cut wages in half,

even after UAW workers took hits during the bailout?

I hadn't realized that.

[Romulox]

25. His team is in control of GM. Yes. Jesus, is this news to you?

:wtf:

[Hannah Bell]

27. obama's *team* decided to cut gm workers' wages in half after they'd already taken concessions

of $10K - $30K during the bailout?

This should be front-page news.

I didn't realize Obama's team was setting wages at GM.

[Romulox]

29. UM...YES. WHAT PART OF "GM IS BEING RUN BY THE OBAMA ADMIN" DON'T YOU GET?

"I didn't realize Obama's team was setting wages at GM."

Yes, but you also didn't realize that there is no gentrification or "ethnic cleansing" in Detroit. So there are a lot of things you don't realize. Why it's so important for you to ignore the fact that Geithner/Rattner/Obama admin have been in control of GM for the past couple years is beyond me. :shrug:

[Hannah Bell]

31. link me to the documentation for obama setting wages at gm.

it's amazing he can run gm & the presidency too.

is he running the banks as well?

does he dictate salaries there?

[Hannah Bell]

34. rom thinks owning shares of gm = "running the company" & making manage-

ment decisions.

just want some confirmation on this, especially the part about "obama" or "obama's team" deciding to cut wages for people with seniority after they already took cuts in the bailout process.

[Starry Messenger]

17. k & r

[sufrommich]

18. It's an attempt by GM and the UAW to build a small car in the

US that will be profitable. The other alternative was to send the plant to a country with cheaper labor costs.Of course, the best alternative would be for Americans to buy American cars as opposed to crying crocodile tears while driving their Toyotas. The union contract at Lake Orion is in effect until 2015 at which time they hope to be able to pay american workers more.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/08/business/08subcompact.html?src=busln

[Hannah Bell]

21. gee, i thought that was why workers took concessions during the bailout. you're saying it wasn't

enough, that even more are needed to be profitable?

I notice the price of cars hasn't gone down yet.

GM has posted $2.5 BILLION in profits during the last two quarters.

They won't be paying more once they rachet the entire workforce down to $12-$14/hr. Who are you kidding?

Labor is less than 10% of the price of a car.

[DainBramaged]

24. Just remember, $14 an hour is a lot of money to live on

:sarcasm:

[michreject]

19. When everyone protests at Solidarity House

Make sure you go there with the AFT or NEA bumper sticker on your Asian vehicle. They'll love your support.

The truth is that those worker receiving half pay are laid off workers from other facilities being called to work at the Orion plant. They most likely have exhausted all benefits, and need to put the time in to collect their full pension.

I wonder why the article didn't mention that the Indianapolis plant is going to close now?

http://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2010/09/end-run-indy-uaw-forces-members-vote-cutting-pay-half

BTW Wendy Thompson (Weingberg), author of the article, was my committee person at one time when I worked at Gear and Axle- Local 235.

[Hannah Bell]

22. "laid off workers from other facilities being called to work" = so what?

Because they're laid off, they should take a 50% cut by fiat, in violation of their contract & Constitution rights?

I can see why UAW has lost nearly 300,000 members since 2005 alone, & over a million since the 70s.

[michreject]

32. The two tier pay scale was negotiated

I wasn't for it but the UAW and GM had to do whatever needed to stay viable with so many anti union folk buying non union, Asian vehicles. Those people do have a smart ass retort though. Such as "There are no more truly domestic cars anymore" or "The parts are imported and assembled here". To this I say bullshit. Where does the profit go and get reinvested in what community?

I'm not saying this as a casual observer. I've been there. I was once a GM gypsy.

[Hannah Bell]

33. You're not understanding the situation. Yes, second-tier was negotiated -- for new hires & temps.

That's not what's happening.

This is arbitrarily defining people with seniority as "second tier" & cutting their wages in half. Orion workers were on layoff & are being called back with this 60/40 stipulation.

"Under the contract, the most senior 60% of workers would receive the UAW’s $28-an-hour wage, while the rest would make about half that. WORKERS LAID OFF AT THE TOP WAGE WHO DON'T FALL IN THE TOP 60% BY SENIORITY COULD SEEK TRANSFERS TO OTHER GM PLANTS."

http://www.factoryrat.com/factoryrat/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=13321



Some unhappy hourly workers at General Motors Co.’s Orion Assembly Plant plan to demonstrate outside the United Auto Workers international headquarters next weekend against a two-tier wage deal they contend could impose lower starting wages on some veteran workers...

“There is a better way to go about doing this than forcing people to go to Tier 2,” Waun said. “This sets a new precedent; we’re afraid this will be (repeated) at other plants around the country in the next contract.”

About 1,150 workers were making the $28 an hour wage before the plant closed, UAW officials said. About 500 of the former Orion employees are working in other GM plants, they said.

Another 300 are eligible for retirement and will be offered incentives to retire instead of returning to the plant. Any veteran worker who doesn’t want to accept the wage cut can request a transfer or wait for a Tier 1 job to open up at Orion.

From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20101009/AUTO01/10090309/1148/auto01/GM-Orion-assembly-workers-to-picket-UAW-over-two-tier-wage-structure#ixzz11qExTKBx

[Hannah Bell]

35. Ford, UAW reach deal on Focus plant : Second-tier wage rate not included

Ford and the UAW have reached a tentative local agreement that would allow the automaker to build the 2012 Ford Focus compact car profitably at Michigan Assembly Plant WITHOUT A SECOND-TIER WAGE RATE LIKE THE ONE ANNOUNCED EARLIER THIS WEEK AT A GM SUBCOMPACT CAR PLANT.

The tentative deal for Michigan Assembly was confirmed by Bill Johnson, a UAW Local 900 plant chairman, but it depends on reaching a deal at a nearby stamping plant.

"Right now, we are not talking about wages," UAW Vice President Jimmy Settles told the Free Press on Friday during an event where Ford CEO Alan Mulally was given the Edward H. McNamara Goodfellow of the Year Award. "There are many ways to create efficiencies without looking at wages," Settles noted.

http://www.factoryrat.com/factoryrat/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=13334