Auto Workers Say: Take Your Concessions & Shut It
As Big 3 automakers rolled out plans that would “save” the industry by destroying jobs, it’s easy to forget that union members must vote on changes to their contract.
Although auto workers have made concessions in a string of contracts since 1979—the latest slashed new-hire wages in half—the Obama administration is demanding more. Proposed cuts include reducing supplemental layoff pay, loosening work rules, and dangerously underfunding retiree health care. All have to be agreed upon by the rank and file. (See more about the proposed concessions.)
A few weeks before the Big 3 cuts were proposed, auto parts workers at New Process Gear in upstate New York were already facing the ultimate ultimatum—agree to 35 percent pay cuts or see their plant close. Distrustful that the company would keep the plant open regardless, members of UAW Locals 624 and 2194 voted the contract down by 76 percent. The next day, New Process Gear, owned by Canada-based Magna International, announced the suburban Syracuse plant would close.
Wendy Thompson, a retired UAW local president who’s organized against concessions, visited workers at the facility after their vote.
“Even in the darkest hour you have some control—you don’t have to blindly accept whatever they’re pushing at you,” Thompson said. “We need to confront these companies and insist that manufacturing jobs aren’t turned into disposable jobs.”
Workers at New Process said that even if they’d approved the contract, the company still could have shuttered the plant as early as this summer, in light of a multi-million-dollar deficit.
Workers bristled when Magna demanded the cuts, shouting down local union officials at a meeting to discuss the tentative agreement. They had already opened their contract in 2008 and dropped wages by more than 30 percent—from $29 to $20 an hour. That language was meant to last until 2011.
“I said to my co-workers, ‘If the union opens up a contract mid-contract, what makes you think the company won’t come back for more?’” said Alfonso Davis, who took a buyout last year after voting ‘no.’
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“Hindsight’s 20/20,” Davis said.
Magna’s 2009 offer would have disabled seniority protections, slashed wages to $13 or $16, depending on the job, cut a week’s vacation, and lopped off holidays. It would have cut the workforce to 750, from 1,400. The plant employed 3,700 in 2004 when Magna bought it from DaimlerChrysler.
Retiree Charles Pierce-El said he would have voted against the concessions if he could because the company had not made good on commitments to invest in and retool the plant, commitments it used to sell the 2008 contract to members. The company had also sweetened that deal by promising a multi-year signing bonus. Magna still owes the workers $37,500 each.
“They didn’t do anything they promised when the workers sacrificed the first time,” Pierce-El said.
Contract opponents were particularly angered that Magna was so quick to close one of its unionized facilities, especially when the plant had been a community staple for more than 100 years. Magna is known for its unfriendly dealings with unions, recently signing a controversial organizing agreement with the Canadian Auto Workers that strips resulting contracts of most traditional union rights.
In step with the Big 3 automakers, Magna’s restructuring plan includes investment overseas while attacking union workers in North America. In mid-February the company bought a European division of rival supplier Cadence Innovation, with plants in Hungary and the Czech Republic, for an unknown amount.
GAMBLING FOR THE FUTURE
After investigation, workers realized that a plant closing now would mean higher unemployment benefits, based on their $20 wage, than what they would get later based on $13. In addition, many would become eligible for retraining under federal programs covering plant shutdowns.
Contract opponents said they’d rather see a closed door than work for $13, a wage many felt was ludicrously low for the highly productive manufacturing workforce. Some wondered what could have happened if the union had gotten off the defensive years ago.
“Part of the unraveling of organized labor is that the leadership of unions have done too much trying to be ‘one of the guys’ with the management,” said Davis. “Then management can make you comfortable with what they’re going to do next.”