CAW Bargaining Reflected Principled Approach
Freda Coodin’s article in the November edition of Labor Notes criticizes the CAW’s strategy in recent bargaining with the Big Three automakers. I do not think she has told a complete or fair story. While the 2005 round did not feature any grand, public “confrontation” between the CAW and the automakers (there’ll be plenty of chance for that in the years to come), the CAW nevertheless followed a principled stand, and furthered several aspects of progressive social unionism. Most importantly, the round left the CAW in strong shape (especially in membership support) for the epic confrontations which clearly do lie ahead.
No Concessions: The contracts contained no concessions, and this can never be taken for granted – especially at this moment in the labour movement’s history. It was not for a lack of trying by the companies involved (especially GM). But the CAW’s advance work (publicly and with its members) to position concession bargaining as a non-option ensured that the companies’ demands (including COLA diversions, lump sum wages, losing a week of time off, and abandoning pension indexation) were all resisted.
Pattern Bargaining: GM warned publicly that it intended to break the tradition of pattern bargaining on grounds that it could not afford the same contract as DaimlerChrysler. This would have been a huge setback, and much of our overall strategy (including setting the pattern at Ford, and crafting a deliberately modest economic settlement) was motivated by the need to hold GM’s feet to the fire. Ultimately, GM backed down, and the pattern is preserved. This was a historic victory, and Coodin doesn’t even mention it.
Globalization: North American autoworkers are more productive than ever, and North American-made vehicles are better than ever. So why are North American-based auto companies going down the tubes? Someone has to expose the root problem; even the bankrupt U.S. health care system cannot explain the whole industry’s dire straits. The CAW’s education and outreach consistently attacked globalization and the one-way flow of automotive imports to North America from outside NAFTA that is destroying jobs in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. At every membership meeting, media conference, or lobbying session, CAW leaders demanded policies to address this imbalance (either by mandating exports to offshore markets or else limiting imports to North America). By educating our members about the destructive impact of globalization, we strengthen their willingness to fight concessions.
Public Pensions: Our 2005 bargaining highlighted our campaign for progressive public policies to underpin the defined benefit plans which we bargain at the table. We negotiated a joint letter with all three companies calling for stronger universal pension benefits, tighter pension regulation, and a guarantee fund to backstop private workplace-based plans as a last resort. This is similar to a joint CAW-Big Three statement we negotiated in 2002 endorsing Canada’s public health system (GM spends just $120 U.S. per vehicle on health benefits in Canada, versus $1500 in the U.S.). We’ll use this letter to extend our fight for more secure pensions into the political arena.
Working Time: Coodin accuses the union of abandoning its long-standing demand for shorter working hours, to offset the impact of ongoing productivity growth on employment levels. This is wrong. The CAW demanded reductions in working time in several forms, including (at some locations) compulsory full utilization of existing vacation time. Company resistance to these demands was, needless to say, intense. High-seniority CAW members are entitled to 12 weeks paid time off per year – several weeks more than the UAW. All three companies started out demanding one of those weeks back. Was this a sensible strike issue in 2005? Not many would think so – least of all our rank-and-file members. Despite this, incredibly, we did actually make a bit of forward progress on work time: two additional paid days off for training over each three-year contract (adding to our existing union-controlled workplace training program).
Investment Policy: The practice of providing fiscal incentives for major automotive investments was common in Canada until right-wing governments abandoned active industrial policy in the 1990s. More recent governments have re-instituted pro-investment measures, with the CAW’s support, and this has helped to land some major new capital investments. This development clearly strengthened the CAW’s efforts to protect Canadian plants and jobs through coming restructurings. In fact, conditions attached to the subsidies actually set minimum levels below which companies like Ford and GM cannot reduce their Canadian employment, without having to repay the subsidies. This is absolutely a step forward in constraining corporate decision-making and holding companies more accountable to the communities where they operate, and the CAW’s members overwhelmingly support the union’s successful efforts in winning public support for major investments.
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The Auto Industry and the Environment: The CAW has actively supported Canada’s ratification and implementation of the Kyoto Protocol limiting greenhouse gas emissions, resisting intense pressure from the auto companies to oppose policy measures which might constrain their design and manufacturing choices. We have linked our support for an active investment policy to the need to build an environmentally sustainable auto industry (including calling for fiscal supports for the development and production of advanced “green car” components & vehicles in Canada). Our locally-based environment committees and campaigns (which are strongest in our Big Three locals, and supported by funds bargained in our master Big 3 contracts) ensure that the CAW’s support for environmental progress is backed up by the membership.
Transparency and Democracy: Throughout this challenging bargaining cycle, the CAW operated completely openly with its members, the media, and government, and the final settlements were ratified by 85% (despite the modest economic package and some job losses). Coodin describes all this as the CAW “softening up” its members; this is unfair and offensive – especially given the contrast to the non-transparent way that many other unions operate. Our members deserve to know the full realities of the auto industry’s predicament (indeed, they can read the newspapers). Yet they will still support their union actively if it picks its battles intelligently, acts in concert with members’ hopes and preferences, and continues to make a genuine difference in their lives. The CAW passed this test of movement unionism in 2005 with flying colours.
A Canadian Approach: 2005 marked the twentieth anniversary of the CAW’s foundation as an independent Canadian union. At every ratification meeting, speakers (from both the podium and the floor) emphasized the importance of the union’s Canadian independence to the positive outcome of 2005 bargaining. Everyone realized it would have been impossible for the CAW to so clearly buck the trend toward concessions, without the ability to call its own shots – both at the bargaining table, and in the political arena. The loudest ovations at our ratification meetings were reserved for the many statements thanking the CAW leaders who charted this course in 1985, and pledging to enhance the union’s Canadian independence in the challenging years ahead. In the eyes of our members, the CAW’s Canadian identity is stronger than it has ever been.
Clearly, the worst is yet to come for the North American auto industry. Some of the fights will occur at the bargaining table, of course, and the CAW is ready to defend its principles there in the epic struggles that lie ahead. For example, a special conference of our auto parts plant leadership recently unanimously endorsed a very tough statement aimed at preventing the spread of Delphi-style concessions into the Canadian parts industry (the statement is posted at www.caw.ca), outlining a seven-point no-concessions action plan and promising to use every non-violent tactic available to us to prevent rollbacks in wages, benefits, and pensions.
But we also recognize that the problems facing the industry are bigger than any single union can possibly confront. We need active policies to limit the impact of globalization on this crucial manufacturing sector, to protect the integrity of union contracts (including by extending those protections to unorganized workers in parts plants and “transplant” assembly operations), and to assist the industry in grappling with new economic and environmental realities.
By combining tough bargaining, membership mobilization, and flexible, independent initiatives in the political arena, the CAW is doing everything it can to further the goals of social unionism – the goals that have guided the union since it was founded.
Jim Stanford is an economist with the CAW in Toronto.