Before You Blame the UAW…
Posted on February 17th, 2009 by Tim Eavenson | No Comments »Filed under: ., Labor Law, Politics, The Financial Crisis |
I know, that’s a vitriolic headline for a website that claims to be Switzerland in the labor wars.
It’s also a bit of a tease. This article (or this writer. Or this website) will make no opinion about whether the UAW is responsible for the mess the auto industry is in. We will leave that to the biased blogs to our right and left.
But as we all eagerly anticipate the release of GM and Chrysler’s restructuring plans, the UAW’s staunch refusal to concede on issues like healthcare payments is already being cited as a reason the Plans won’t meet with much satisfaction on the Hill.
And that’s probably true. Congress will likely hate the fact that, for the mess the economy is in, the UAW is standing pat on its collective bargaining agreements and playing hardball with concessions. Indeed, as we reported last fall, part of the deal the Bush White House struck with automakers when it promised the $17 Billion was that they get concessions from the Union on the big-ticket items like health coverage, wages and work rule restrictions.
But wait. That’s the problem. This wasn’t the UAW’s deal. Sure they were “at the table” when negotiations were taking place, but the UAW wasn’t asking for the money. No, remember: what happened here was that Congressional Republicans had tried to get them to concede to these very same cuts weeks before the deal went through, and when they failed, Bush just put the onus on the carmakers to force the union’s hand.
And that’s my problem with putting this one on the UAW. Whether they got Detroit in this mess or not, they didn’t draft the “bailout” last fall, and they didn’t approve it, but it had everything to do with them.
So while the politicians and media will no doubt fall on one side or the other of the debate, let’s not forget that they were the ones who praised the original bailout, without ever bringing up this promise-discrepancy in the first place.
Before you light your torch with the rest of the mob tomorrow when the wails against the UAW start, here are a few points to consider:
The fight is not over “health-care costs”.
Well, it is, but not really. During the parties’ last collective bargaining negotiations, the union agreed to take on all of the healthcare responsibilities for its workers. That would have been a huge money-saver for GM in the long run. The deal was that GM would put $34 billion or so in a trust, called a VEBA, which would provide startup money for the union to use to administer the employees health plans. After that initial cash infusion, GM would essentially be off-the-hook for healthcare coverage for its unionized workforce.
Now, as part of the “restructuring plan”, GM wants the union to agree to reduce its payment obligation, delay the VEBA’s funding or more. While the rioters make it sound like the union is pushing back against reductions in healthcare coverage, the reality is that the UAW made a huge concession taking on healthcare administration, and wants GM to cover what they promised in the interim.
The Union has been making the exact type of concessions Congress is demanding for years.
Also at the most recent contract talks, the UAW reduced its base pay for recent hires and altered its job classifications to make certain jobs more flexible and pay less. It’s not ignorant to the economic plight in Detroit. I think it’s just doing what unions do – fighting for every drop or crumb it can get for the workers. Good or bad, criticizing the UAW for that is like blaming a cow for eating grass or Terrell Owens for mouthing off.
After giving up a lot of ground over the past few years, is the union playing hardball? Yes. That, in fact, is why unions exist. It gave up a lot during the last round of collective bargaining, and is probably wondering what the point was, if it was just going to have to give up so much more now, whether it likes it or not.
Should Congress be demanding some accountability in Detroit? Again, sure. But if it wants concessions from the UAW, it should’ve gotten them itself, instead of creating this prisoner’s dilemma and then patting itself on the back for saving the auto industry.
Look, saying you’ll loan person #1 money that they need to survive, provided they can convince person #2 to do something that you yourself could not convince them to do is not exactly a recipe for success. The obvious result of forcing the car companies to make promises they couldn’t control was exactly what happened – a meltdown at the negotiating table.
One has to wonder whether that was the idea all along. Instead of criticizing Bush in his unappealing, waning days as President, push the public anger back into the Obama administration, and blame the union. That sounds like a much better proposition for those thwarted Congressional Republicans.
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