The United Auto Workers is locked in a bitter labor dispute...against its employees?

[corktownyuppie]

"Bob King always talks about creative problem-solving, but the only creative problem solution he's offering is more layoffs," said Audrey McKenna, vice president of OPEIU Local 494, which represents UAW office employees in Detroit. "We know times are tough, but they're spending like the 'Housewives of Beverly Hills.'"

She and other union members said the UAW has been hiring a small army of consultants for its organizing campaign against foreign-owned automakers. They also accuse King and other UAW officials of spending big on foreign travel and remodeling projects at Solidarity House.

From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20111111/...#ixzz1dkSEVNtQ

Ok...it's impossible to take unions seriously when they are this divorced from reality. Solidarity house is in a city where umemployment arguably exceeds 40%. You could cut wages in HALF and still have people line up for the jobs.

At this point, I think unions should resign themselves to negotiating for safe working conditions, fair employee treatment, protecting against abuse of power. But trying to negotiate about wages or work requirements??

My favorite is that the union rep decries the money spent by the UAW with no consideration that the expense is an investment to grow the organization.

Wow. No wonder America is losing.

[Wesley Mouch]

... But trying to negotiate about wages or work requirements??...

When your employer treats you like badly, what choice is there?

Union pickets Union!

HA!

Eat your own dogfood, and enjoy it, Bob!

[MikeM]

Everything McKenna says is true. I'd be picketing the UAW too.

[Scottathew]

She and other union members said the UAW has been hiring a small army of consultants for its organizing campaign against foreign-owned automakers.

The UAW is against foreign owned auto makers?

I had no idea they were against Chrysler! Don't they have a lot of members in Chrysler plants?

[MikeM]

Don't they have a lot of members in Chrysler plants?

Yes, so why would they have an organizing campaign against Fiat/Chrysler?

[Searay215]

The UAW should clean up its own house before they attack anyone for anything. The UAW has little dirty secrets.....

For example: The people that work at Solidarity House are actually represented by another union and that union is a sham. They are treated like crap, and taken advantage of repeatedly. Women are treated like they were in the 50's, subserviant and harrassed. One VP even smokes cigars in the building even though its against the law.
I guess what I am saying is, its a do as I say not as I do attitude there at the Solidarity House.

The staff took no cuts while their own people took a cut in pay and had furlough days. Although they did get those back, and only becuase they needed them. While management took no cuts at all.
In the next month you may even hear about a program that they are cutting workers by offering buy outs and lay offs. Actually its happening right now.....Who is calling the kettle black?

There are so many things that they are guilty of that they chide the automakers for is not even funny. Bob King is a joke.... Personally I see the demise of the UAW within the next decade.

[JBMcB]

My favorite is that the union rep decries the money spent by the UAW with no consideration that the expense is an investment to grow the organization.

I think their problem is that they are hiring consultants, which brings on more clerical work, but they are trying to get rid of clerical workers.

If the clerical workers strike, would the UAW shut down? Don't they have some rule about not crossing picket lines?

[Lowell]

Detroit News jumps on news of labor strife at UAW. I am shocked simply shocked to see that picked up by such a pro-union publication.

UAW at a management level is a billion plus revenue business with labor contracts and layoffs follow those agreements. No one even Bob King at the top makes a salary of $200K. There isn't a private sector company of similar size that even comes close to comparing.

Salaries at the UAW are all far below the private sector equivalents.

Additionally leadership is all elected. The clerical union leader is fighting for her membership like she was likewise elected to do.

[jackie5275]

Detroit News jumps on new of labor strife at UAW. I shocked simply shocked to see that picked up by such a pro-union publication.

Lowell, I hope you mean this facetiously. The News is anything but pro-union.

[JBMcB]

Detroit News jumps on news of labor strife at UAW. I am shocked simply shocked to see that picked up by such a pro-union publication.

Are you insinuating that reporting on union problems in a union is anti-union? Or are the clerical workers not worth reporting on?

[Scottathew]

Yes, so why would they have an organizing campaign against Fiat/Chrysler?

That's a great question.

My guess is that they somehow aren't categorizing Chrysler as foreign owned, even though 53% of it is owned by Fiat.

If you drive a Chrysler, you're driving foreign!

[Det_ard]

The UAW has a very simplistic understanding of "foreign" and "domestic".

[rjk]

Lowell, I hope you mean this facetiously. The News is anything but pro-union.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Gf8NK1WAOc

[Scottathew]

The UAW has a very simplistic understanding of "foreign" and "domestic".

Simplistic, but is it logical and consistent?

[MikeM]

That's a great question.

My guess is that they somehow aren't categorizing Chrysler as foreign owned, even though 53% of it is owned by Fiat.

If you drive a Chrysler, you're driving foreign!

The point you missed is that you don't organize an already organized company.

[MikeM]

My favorite is that the union rep decries the money spent by the UAW with no consideration that the expense is an investment to grow the organization.

One good thing about Gettelfinger was that he was stingy. Turkia Mullin getting a $200k severance without anyone really approving it? You couldn't spend $20 without getting Gettelfinger's approval. With King in office the money is flying out the window. Sending staff to Thailand, Russia, Brazil; this is building the organization? Paying someone $30k moving costs to move to the neighboring state, even though they kept their other house; this is building the organization? Meanwhile King doesn't want to offend his buddies at Ford, so he'll sabotage an effort to organize a supplier in Kentucky.

[Detroitnerd]

Rank-and-file vs. international leadership is an old theme with the UAW. Often rank-and-file see the leadership as unresponsive, and often the leadership sees internal discontent as the work of a handful of militants. In fact, right now I'm reading "Whose Detroit?" which chronicles a lot of that internal strife. I had thought things had improved since the bad old days of 1967-1972, though.

In any event, as Lowell points out, people with their own axes to grind are going to hop all over this, even if they never paid attention to union news before, as proof of their anti-union prejudices.

After all, with the banks clean and regulated, everybody who committed those white-collar crimes behind bars, and all the wars over forever, we have to focus on these little problems now to completely make life perfect.

[Det_ard]

Simplistic, but is it logical and consistent?

No.1234567

[corktownyuppie]

In any event, as Lowell points out, people with their own axes to grind are going to hop all over this, even if they never paid attention to union news before, as proof of their anti-union prejudices.

After all, with the banks clean and regulated, everybody who committed those white-collar crimes behind bars, and all the wars over forever, we have to focus on these little problems now to completely make life perfect.

Not assuming that these comments were aimed at me or anyone in particular, but I'd like to respond to them.

First, I am a banker, for what that's worth. But I was having lunch with another banker on Friday and we were talking about the Occupation movement, Supercommittee debt crisis, and what's going on with Euro crisis in Italy and Greece with their debt issues. We both came to the same conclusions: it's the investment banking community that is mostly responsible for this mess. So when you've got the bankers agreeing with the far left, I'd say that their gripes -- while not always the most articulate or informed -- have merit.

Second, I don't have a problem with unions. And perhaps my youthful naivety is to blame, but I believe that a cooperative relationship between labor and management is not just possible, but necessary, in today's global economy.

The question is this: how will unions respond to an environment where the economic value of their man-hours is decreasing? Will they attempt to buffer the decline, allowing to happen gradually so that its members can have a "soft landing", one that can gradually transition them for another career? Or will they defend against the decline, fighting tooth and nail to resist the coming change?

The problem with the second is that when the economic forces finally overwhelm the defense, the membership is forced to experience 5, 10, 20 years of painful economic austerity in one shot. But yet, that's what I perceive is happening here.

When the clerical staff is talking about how they made sacrifices several years ago, it's hard not to dismiss it. This economy is brutal. NO ONE's income is based on where it was several years ago. Most people in my industry lost 20-30% of their pay in 2009 and 2010. Even more lost jobs completely.

I would love to see unions take leadership in helping prepare their members and develop their members for economic changes which are inevitable. Use their power and resources to prepare them for what's coming next. But that first means that the members need to accept that the current way is going away and will soon be gone.

[Wesley Mouch]

...
Second, I don't have a problem with unions. And perhaps my youthful naivety is to blame, but I believe that a cooperative relationship between labor and management is not just possible, but necessary, in today's global economy.

The question is this: how will unions respond to an environment where the economic value of their man-hours is decreasing? Will they attempt to buffer the decline, allowing to happen gradually so that its members can have a "soft landing", one that can gradually transition them for another career? Or will they defend against the decline, fighting tooth and nail to resist the coming change?

The problem with the second is that when the economic forces finally overwhelm the defense, the membership is forced to experience 5, 10, 20 years of painful economic austerity in one shot. But yet, that's what I perceive is happening here.

When the clerical staff is talking about how they made sacrifices several years ago, it's hard not to dismiss it. This economy is brutal. NO ONE's income is based on where it was several years ago. Most people in my industry lost 20-30% of their pay in 2009 and 2010. Even more lost jobs completely.

I would love to see unions take leadership in helping prepare their members and develop their members for economic changes which are inevitable. Use their power and resources to prepare them for what's coming next. But that first means that the members need to accept that the current way is going away and will soon be gone.

Leadership that helps prepare their members doesn't get re-elected.

I agree that Unions are necessary and helpful, but they've marginalized themselves, by raising their personal living standards, and leaving everyone else behind. As a result, they're losing the sympathy of the workers. The vast majority of workers that are not unionized.

I hope that Unions do adapt, but given protective laws to shield themselves from the reality that everyone else faces, the future is not promising.

At least the occupy movement was an attempt at a moral position -- not just a money grab by members of the union elite at the expense of their disenfranchised [[by union) brothers.

[Detroitnerd]

Not assuming that these comments were aimed at me or anyone in particular, but I'd like to respond to them.

No, not to you in particular. Just a reworking of that old, "Now that all our major problems have been solved, we can crack down on this itty-bitty problem." [[The point being that the major problems linger and grow larger.)

First, I am a banker, for what that's worth. But I was having lunch with another banker on Friday and we were talking about the Occupation movement, Supercommittee debt crisis, and what's going on with Euro crisis in Italy and Greece with their debt issues. We both came to the same conclusions: it's the investment banking community that is mostly responsible for this mess. So when you've got the bankers agreeing with the far left, I'd say that their gripes -- while not always the most articulate or informed -- have merit.

Yeah, the investment banks, the ratings agencies, the other players involved in the MBS and CDS crap, as well as their lackeys in Washington, D.C. They should be prosecuted and sent to jail.

Second, I don't have a problem with unions. And perhaps my youthful naivety is to blame, but I believe that a cooperative relationship between labor and management is not just possible, but necessary, in today's global economy.

Well, my sympathies are a little more clearly worded: They lie with labor, not necessarily with unions all the time. There are good unions and bad unions. With the rank-and-file, I clearly identify.

The question is this: how will unions respond to an environment where the economic value of their man-hours is decreasing? Will they attempt to buffer the decline, allowing to happen gradually so that its members can have a "soft landing", one that can gradually transition them for another career? Or will they defend against the decline, fighting tooth and nail to resist the coming change?

I'm not sure that it is inevitable. Globalism, so-called free trade agreements and organizations such as the IMF and World Bank have created an environment where capital flows freely across borders, allowing the global corporations to arbitrage labor costs between the developed and developing world, while offshoring industry from the industrialized countries for higher profits without creating jobs at home. Since the early 1970s, this has been carefully orchestrated by global corporations. What we need is a force to counteract that. Even Pat Buchanan has pointed out that what built up the United States wasn't the medicine doled out by institutions like the IMF, but that "[b]ehind a tariff wall built by Washington, Hamilton, Clay, Lincoln, and the Republican presidents who followed, the United States had gone from an agrarian coastal republic to become the greatest industrial power the world had ever seen — in a single century. Such was the success of the policy called protectionism that is so disparaged today."

If the IMF had come to the United States in 1820, it would have said "do what you do best," which is to say, export cotton and buy back finished goods from the countries that have already industrialized.

In truth, the only winners in this system of global capital are the global capitalists. They are using their power and influence to attempt to turn us all into their slaves.

And that's not good for anybody, bankers included.

[Bham1982]

We both came to the same conclusions: it's the investment banking community that is mostly responsible for this mess. So when you've got the bankers agreeing with the far left, I'd say that their gripes -- while not always the most articulate or informed -- have merit.

No, it's Congress that is almost entirely responsible for this mess. Wall Street, like any industry, is fully a creature of its regulatory framework.

There were no protests when the feds forced banks to give everyone a loan. Now, of course, you have the idiots on the far right and far left "outraged" that the free ride is over. Bet you many of the same folks were mortgaged to the extreme.

And "a banker" is an amorphous term. Are you an investment banker? This industry and its proxies are almost nonexistent in Michigan. Investment banking is very highly concentrated, mostly in NYC and London.

[Detroitnerd]

No, it's Congress that is almost entirely responsible for this mess. Wall Street, like any industry, is fully a creature of its regulatory framework.

There were no protests when the feds forced banks to give everyone a loan. Now, of course, you have the idiots on the far right and far left "outraged" that the free ride is over. Bet you many of the same folks were mortgaged to the extreme.

Oh, yes. Those poor, poor bankers were forced at gunpoint to give loans to poor people.

Loans that gave them higher bonuses than loans that people could repay.

And predatory lenders made more and more of these loans so they could make more and more money.

Tell us again about the "feds" forcing banks to make those loans.

I see you still haven't watched "Inside Job." You really ought to.

[mwilbert]

Those poor, poor bankers also spent large amounts of time, money, and political capital getting the rules the way they wanted them. You can certainly blame Congress for giving them what they wanted, but I would hardly hold the banks blameless.

[JBMcB]

Oh, yes. Those poor, poor bankers were forced at gunpoint to give loans to poor people.

Basically, yes. If you weren't in compliance with the CRA you'd get hit with fines by the justice department, or the CEO of the bank would get dragged in front of congress and grilled by Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi for depriving poor people of their right to mortgages. ACORN used to shake down banks for donations in exchange for not filing complaints about non-compliance with CRA, which would screw with mergers and other regulated activity.

CRA wasn't entirely responsible for the subprime crisis, of course. However, you had the federal government leaning on banks to make subprime loans, Fannie and Freddie implicitly stating they'd back any subprime mortgages issued, and the fed cranking rates down making profitability on regular loans nearly nonexistent.