resolved

Delegates approve
bargaining program

Pledge high-road fight for jobs, safety and quality

March 28, 2007

Delegates to the UAW Special Convention on Collective Bargaining passed a comprehensive resolution that will help guide the efforts of local and national bargaining committees in the months and years ahead.

“Our approach to bargaining follows the high road,” reads the resolution approved by convention delegates, meeting at Cobo Hall in Detroit. “We believe competition can and should combine high wages, comprehensive benefits and safe and healthy working conditions, with high levels of productivity, quality and responsiveness to customers.”

The need for safety in our workplaces was one of the issues discussed during Wednesday’s session.

“The worst thing I ever did”
The bustling convention hall fell silent as Whitey Bragg, a delegate from UAW Local 1250 described a horrific incident earlier this year at Ford’s Cleveland (Ohio) Casting Plant. His co-worker, friend and union brother Francisco Fraticelli died Feb. 2 after being crushed in a core-making machine.

"I had to go tell his wife that he wasn't coming home that day,” said Bragg. “I was in Vietnam, and that was the worst thing I ever did. I don't want anyone else to ever have to go through this."

The resolution approved by delegates includes strong measures to promote safe workplaces, including health and safety training, ergonomic improvements, reduction of chemical hazards, and the right to refuse potentially hazardous work.

“We will seek a clear and strong definition of the right of UAW members to refuse dangerous assignments,” reads the resolution, “and will fiercely defend that right when it is exercised.”

Delegates also debated strong union approaches to training and development, investment commitments, innovative benefits, justice in the workplace and social responsibility.

Clean, green vehicles a bargaining priority
The bargaining resolution identifies environmental responsibility as a priority for UAW members when bargaining with employers in energy-intensive manufacturing industries.

“We will bargain to increase the production of advanced, fuel-saving technologies in UAW-represented workplaces, especially where those technologies replace, or have the potential to replace, current UAW-produced products.”

The union will seek to enhance job security for workers in the auto industry, delegates agreed, by “bargaining to secure investment in the production of advanced-technology (hybrid, diesel and fuel cell) and alternative-fuel vehicles in UAW-represented workplaces.”