We Bargain For Fairness

By Ron Gettelfinger
President, UAW

The past four years have been incredibly challenging for America’s autoworkers. Since we negotiated our last contracts with Chrysler, Delphi, Ford, General Motors and Visteon in 2003, each of these companies has gone through dramatic changes that have had a serious impact on our members and our families.

Visteon transferred most of its UAW-represented plants back to Ford, for possible sale or closure; Delphi declared a mechanical bankruptcy; the UAW negotiated health care changes for active and retired members at GM and Ford. All three automakers announced restructuring plans that will require dozens of plant
closings and a reduction of tens of thousands of auto jobs. And in May 2007, DaimlerChrysler decided to sell its Chrysler Group to Cerberus, a private equity firm, for $7.4 billion.

In each of these difficult circumstances, UAW members – acting together as a union – have made a dramatic difference. We’ve fought to protect jobs, income, health benefits and pensions. We haven’t won every fight. But time and again, our members have demonstrated that workers acting together can accomplish more than any one of us standing alone.

Bargaining for a better future

UAW members enter the 2007 auto talks knowing that our willingness to address critical issues in our industry has helped secure a better future for our active and retired members and for the communities where we work and live. We also know the actions taken by our union have saved our employers billions of dollars, helping to position these companies to be more competitive.

We are optimistic we can continue to renew a great American industry that provides good jobs at good wages in communities across America.

Those who have only a hammer for a tool will insist the only way to fix the American auto industry is to hit UAW members with severe wage and benefit cuts. We disagree.

For one thing, labor costs represent just 10 percent of the cost of a new vehicle. So it is evident that the cost structure of the U.S. auto industry cannot be adjusted in a meaningful way by focusing on less than 10 percent of costs, while ignoring the other 90 percent.
In addition, data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau demonstrate that U.S. autoworkers are among the most productive manufacturing workers anywhere in the world, producing value added worth $206 per worker per hour – far more than any of us earn in wages and benefits.

A high-road strategy

Members of our union have no interest in entering a competition based on who can work for the lowest possible pay. Instead, we intend to pursue a high-road strategy centered on creating high-quality, high-performance workplaces that lead to success in the marketplace for our employers and good jobs with good wages for our membership.

UAW members are aware that not all the problems of our industry can be solved at the bargaining table. Design, engineering, marketing, automotive finance and many other factors key to the success of automakers are outside the control of our members and outside the scope of collective bargaining.

In addition, national and international policies on trade, health care, labor rights and related issues have had and will continue to have a major impact on prospects for the domestic auto industry. These are issues our union and our employers must confront through the political process, not at the bargaining table.

But there is a great deal that can be accomplished at the bargaining table. Our negotiating teams at Chrysler, Ford and General Motors will work to build on past accomplishments of UAW members in key areas such as workplace safety, quality, productivity and fair compensation for American autoworkers.

• We are committed to defending good wages, secure benefits and decent pensions for active and retired UAW members.
• Job and income security – along with opportunities for lifelong training and education – are a priority for UAW members and our families.
• We will continue to advocate for the safest possible work environment and build on the work we have already done with employers to reduce workplace injuries and illnesses.
• UAW members will continue to bargain for an enhanced role in product quality. Our customers deserve no less, and quality is a key factor in protecting our job security. We are proud that many of the vehicles our members produce have earned top ratings for quality and reliability, and we will continue to build on these achievements.
• Unionized autoworkers in the United States and Canada continue to set industry standards for productivity. According to the latest industry data, workers in union-  ized plants are more efficient than their nonunion counterparts in 11 out of 12 vehicle segments that can be compared on an equal basis.

We will continue to use the bargaining process as a means to find joint solutions to enhance productivity, mindful of the need to address workload, staffing and other issues in order to protect health and safety in the workplace.

Our goal is to negotiate labor agreements that deliver real value to our members and communities while addressing the realities of our industry.

The challenges we face in this year’s round of bargaining are enormous – and we are confident that once again, UAW members have the smarts, the spirit and the solidarity to get the job done.