Thursday, September 06, 2007

Remarks by UAW President Ron Gettelfinger at the Detroit Economic Club

Good afternoon everyone!

Thank you Mr. Wayne County Executive, Bob Ficano for the kind introduction. Thank all of you for the equally warm reception and for the respect you show to the office which I am privileged to hold in our union. Bob Ficano is doing an outstanding job as our Wayne County Executive and we appreciate the work he does everyday to secure new jobs. Executive Ficano steps up to the challenges he faces with courage and conviction and we respect his leadership.

Speaking of leadership, Beth Chappell is doing a great job as President and CEO of the Detroit Economic Club. It is a major asset to this Club, and our city, having Ms. Chappell in this position. She is constantly challenging the Board to make this Club better and that is a real push when you are already one of the best speaking forums in America. Thank you, Ms. Chappell, for your leadership, your commitment and your dedication to this club and our community.

It’s an honor to be here, and, on behalf of our International Executive Board, and the women and men of the UAW, both active and retired; I want to thank the DEC Board for the opportunity to speak with you this afternoon.

On Monday of this week members of organized labor proudly marched down Woodward Ave. in Detroit and in communities across America. This special day recognizes what unions and working people have meant to our nation. As unions harnessed the power of collective bargaining to raise living standards, we helped create the consumer buying power that made America the driving engine of global economic growth during the second half of the 20th century.

Monday was indeed a day to celebrate as we reflected on our past achievements and honored the memory of union pioneers while at the same time re-energizing ourselves to tackle today’s issues.

On Saturday, September 1st we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the birth of Walter Philip Reuther, the fourth president of our union. Of course, we in the UAW are especially proud of Walter Reuther and all that he accomplished on behalf of workers.

Among so many other things, he embedded in our union an Ethical Practices Code that applies to every union leader. Reuther left us with a Public Review Board that was established in 1957 consisting of a group of independent distinguished citizens to which members can appeal their grievances against the union.

But, just as importantly, he left us with a sense of hope knowing that as members of organized labor we can bring equity and justice to the workplace and that we can improve our communities and our nation by speaking out for what is right and just.

Reuther worked hard on behalf of workers inside and outside of our union both here and in other countries. His perseverance, along with the efforts of others in organized labor, led to the creation of the middle class. Our nation and her workers benefited because of his leadership.

On September 8, 2005 I was privileged to stand at this podium and I want to repeat in part from a quote that I used then from a speech Walter Reuther gave to the American Public Health Association in 1968. “We can continue to accept the status quo and spend increasing billions each year to meet the skyrocketing cost of health care services; “We can go on subsidizing the built-in waste and inefficiency of a system that will continue to fail to meet our essential health care needs; “Or we can act in the knowledge that we must develop new ideas and new concepts and, through new social invention, create an appropriate system of national health insurance that provides an adequate and workable financial mechanism to make high quality comprehensive health care available to every American. “I do not propose that we borrow a national health insurance system from any other nation. No nation has a system that will meet the peculiar needs of America. “[But] I am confident that we have in America the ingenuity and the social inventiveness that is needed to create a system of national health insurance that will be uniquely American.” – End quote. How much progress have we made since 1968 in solving the health care crisis?

1) In 2007 America’s health care bill is expected to be $2.2 trillion, the highest in the world.

2) We have 47 million Americans with no health care and millions more who are underinsured.

3) Infant mortality –- the U.S. ranks 27th in the world.

4) Life expectancy for women –- we rank 30th in the world.

5) Life expectancy for men –- 27th in the world.

6) According to an article in American Medical News on March 6, 2006 by Jonathan Bethely, about one third of health care dollars doesn’t go for health care; 20% goes to insurers and 12 % goes for administrative burdens on hospitals and providers who deal with differing drug formularies, insurance provisions, and forms for over 1,000 different insurers, each with multiple plans.

7) Between 1970 and 2006 the number of physicians grew by less than 200 percent while the number of health care administrators grew by 2,500 percent.

As a nation we need to get our house in order when it comes to health care. Every one of our major trading partners has a national health care system which delivers quality care at an affordable price. We don’t. And, we cannot afford to wait.

Our union has, since it was proposed by President Truman, supported a single payer, universal, comprehensive national health care program that covers every person because we believe health care should be a right and not a privilege for those who can afford it.

Obviously, not everyone agrees with this approach, but surely we can agree that while we have the best health care professionals anywhere in the world, our current system of health care delivery is too costly and inefficient.

This crisis is not going to resolve itself. The longer we delay taking action; more children will lack health insurance and won’t be able to get needed medical care. These children can’t afford to wait and neither can we.

That’s why, in the near term, our union supports the March of Dimes campaign to extend and expand the State Child Health Insurance program, to provide coverage to more children.

We also support creative ideas like lowering Medicare eligibility to age 55.

That’s the right thing to do for older workers who have been laid off without health insurance.

And it’s the right thing to do for responsible employers, who want to provide health insurance for active and retired workers.

The task before all of us is to search for the common ground which will enable us to take care of children, help vulnerable workers and retirees and help employers to compete.

When we look at what’s happening in other areas of America today, we can’t help but ask: Is our country headed in the right direction?

According to the latest government data, income for the average American family was lower in 2005 than it was in 2000.

Wages for the 80% of Americans who have non-supervisory jobs have been stagnating since the mid-1990s even as those at the top of the income scale are doing better than ever.

While wages and incomes for working families are stagnant or falling, the price of groceries is going up by double digits.

It’s not easy to meet rising expenses out of a stagnating income. And it doesn’t get much easier even when there is more than one wage-earner in the family.

What is that worker going to do?

One thing that he or she is not going to do is buy a new vehicle.

If fewer vehicles are sold, then Chrysler, Ford, and GM will be under more pressure to lay-off another shift or close another plant.

This equates to fewer jobs, sales and profits at Tier One and Tier Two suppliers and so on down the line.

The decisions we make about good jobs and wages and industry affect our entire economy -- including workers, families and communities.

For example, we have made a decision -- as a nation -- that we are not particularly concerned about manufacturing jobs.

Other nations treasure their manufacturing industries, and develop policies to nurture and support them.

We don’t. We, as a nation, have taken no action whatsoever as entire industries -- toys, textiles, televisions -- have relocated overseas.

Because of decisions made by business owners and government officials, plants have been closed. Communities have suffered. Lives have been shattered.

And now, we are paying a huge price.

To take just one example, it’s going to be a very unusual Christmas this year in America. Because we do not value and protect our manufacturing industries in this country, we are now in a situation where 80% of the toys sold in America are made in China.

These toys are made under well-known -- and until recently well-respected -- American brand names, like Mattel and Hasbro, Fisher Price, Disney and McDonald’s.

Most of us grew up knowing and trusting those names.

Unfortunately, today a brand name is just that: a name branded on a product.

It no longer conveys a sense of stewardship, in which a manufacturer is responsible for every component and every operation that goes into the crafting of a particular product.

Today, more often than not, manufacturing is outsourced to another country far away. Once it gets there, it gets subcontracted, and then maybe subcontracted again. This is equivalent to a loss of control in the manufacturing process.

So when millions of toys turn up contaminated with lead there’s a lot of finger-pointing, but, who is really responsible?

And in case any of us think that our government can turn away unsafe imports that arrive at our nation’s borders, consider this: Each year, 18 million containers of imported goods arrive at our nation’s ports -- up from 1 million per year in 1994.

In 1994, we had 400 federal inspectors assigned to check on the safety of imported goods.

Today, we still have just 400 inspectors and their jobs are reactive as opposed to preventive. In other words it’s assumed the goods are okay unless someone points out a problem.

18 million shipping containers. 400 inspectors.

When you look at those numbers, it’s hard to feel any kind of safety or security about the products we are buying for our children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews.

It is the responsibility of the American government, after all, to ensure the safety of American consumers. Unfortunately our government has abandoned that responsibility in the service of trade policies that can only be described as flawed.

Now, our children are going to pay the price this Christmas. We’re either going to have to buy them toys that we aren’t 100% sure are safe or get them nothing at all.

We are concerned about the consumer side, and rightfully so, but look at the human rights and workers issues on the manufacturing end. Nobody wants to work with lead paint all day, because lead is hazardous to adults as well as to children.

I think it is safe to assume that if workers in Chinese toy factories had an independent union, with real bargaining power, they would certainly have the removal of lead and other toxic substances high on their agenda.

It would mean a safer workplace for Chinese workers and safer products for the rest of us.

It would be a mistake, of course, when discussing workplace safety, to assume that all the problems can be found abroad, while everything is just fine here at home.

In 2006, 5,703 fatal work injuries occurred in the U.S. It is estimated that fifty to sixty thousand Americans die each year due to occupational illnesses and injuries.

America’s working families deserve better.

Workers deserve a chance to come home in the same shape as when they reported for work whether in a mine, a factory, on a farm, or in an office.

And when workers reach the age of retirement, they deserve a chance to enjoy some years of rest without a debilitating illness that may have been caused by unsafe practices in the workplace.

Whether it’s in China or in Crandall County Utah, working men and women deserve the strongest possible health and safety protections.

Of course we all benefit when we agree on rigorous standards to protect our air, land and water from pollution.

The UAW has always been a strong advocate for workplace safety and environmental progress. We’ve never accepted the argument that you have to sacrifice jobs to win a safe workplace or to protect environmental quality.

That’s why we are so concerned about the current debate in Washington about fuel economy. We’re being told that we must choose between protecting our environment vs. protecting our jobs.

We can have both if we act responsibly, based on real facts instead of overheated rhetoric.

If we get all of our information out of Washington, we might believe that everything that is wrong with the environment was the fault of the auto industry. And that everything that’s wrong with the auto industry is the fault of Chrysler, Ford and GM.

In fact, just 16% of carbon emissions come from cars and light trucks. We can’t solve the very real problem of climate change if we focus entirely on the auto industry and ignore the other 84% of the carbon economy.

It’s incorrect to suggest that all the problems of the auto industry can be laid at the feet of three companies.

The reality is that UAW-made vehicles from Chrysler, Ford and GM offer a fuller range of fuel-saving technologies than the competition, including the most complete choice of hybrid technologies, clean diesels, variable displacement, advanced transmissions, and flex-fuel capability.

It’s bad enough that manufacturing industries don’t get much help from Washington but it makes no sense at all for Congress to push extreme measures on fuel economy that would devastate the domestic auto industry.

Make no mistake: If the fuel economy measure that passed the U.S. Senate becomes law it will have a major negative impact on the auto industry and our economy.

The Senate bill completely eliminates the distinction between foreign and domestic auto fleets. U.S. companies will no longer have an incentive to balance their full-size car production here with U.S. production of smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles.

The inevitable result is that small-car production will be shifted overseas and tens of thousands of workers will lose their jobs.

At the same time, by requiring such drastic changes in fuel economy over such a short period of time, and by repealing the distinction between passenger cars and light trucks, the extreme Senate bill would force manufacturers to also curtail production of some of their larger vehicles including pick-ups, minivans, and SUVs that consumers want to buy.

Again, the inevitable result will be plant closings and job loss.

If the Senate bill on fuel economy forces companies to close both small-car plants and large-vehicle plants, what will be left in the United States?

Not much. Which is why members of our union and the Big Three have joined Toyota, BMW, and other participants in the American auto industry to oppose this irresponsible measure.

It’s irresponsible and it’s unnecessary.

There’s a much better bill before Congress -- a bill that would require a sharp increase in fuel economy standards in a responsible manner that would help our industry and preserve American jobs.

It’s a bi-partisan measure sponsored by Rep. Baron Hill, Democrat of Indiana, and Rep. Lee Terry, Republican of Nebraska.

We congratulate them both for showing real leadership on this critical issue -- and we thank as well the 162 members of the House of Representatives who have signed on as co-sponsors of this important bill.

The Hill-Terry bill is gaining momentum. It now has more sponsors than a competing House bill introduced by Rep. Ed Markey, which unfortunately repeats the same mistakes as the Senate legislation.

Let’s be clear: Now is the time to push, and push hard, for improvements in fuel economy. The Hill-Terry bill does exactly that. It will raise current fuel economy standards by 28 - 40%.

That would be the biggest increase ever since CAFE standards were first implemented in the 1970s.

But unlike other, more extreme proposals, the Hill-Terry bill would phase in these requirements over a reasonable period between now and 2022. That gives automakers sufficient time to re-tool their plants to shift towards more fuel efficient vehicles. The Hill-Terry bill would also maintain the foreign and domestic auto fleets, and the distinction between passenger cars and light trucks, thereby protecting production and jobs at both small and full-size vehicle plants in the U.S.

Hill-Terry is a win-win proposal: A 28 - 40% increase in fuel economy. Preserving choice for consumers. Preserving small car production and full-size vehicle production in the U.S., saving tens of thousands of good-paying jobs.

If you have not yet contacted your representative or senator about this proposal, please do so. Our entire country needs this bill because we all benefit from a strong auto industry.

Today in auto plants across America, UAW members are making top-quality vehicles. Our vehicles are winning consumer satisfaction awards and our plants are winning productivity awards.

We believe the American auto industry has a bright future and that UAW members will continue to play a key role in shaping that future.

In America and around the globe, working people have made enormous contributions to building strong economies and strong communities.

We don’t have all the answers to the challenges of the 21st century but we do believe that whatever shape our economy takes, working people deserve a voice.

Workers deserve a safe workplace. As consumers and as citizens, we deserve products that are safe for ourselves and for our children.

And we deserve government policies that support our industries, and make it possible to preserve good-paying jobs now and in the future.

It’s a simple and straightforward agenda and we know it won’t be easy to achieve. But if all of us work together with the goal of a positive future for our families and our communities we will be successful.

Thank you very much for your attention.