outsourcing
An excuse to destroy unions?
Each night when Billy McIntosh pulls into his driveway after work, he pauses to look up at his house and wonders if he’ll be able to keep it.
It’s not an uncommon question on a lot of people’s minds these days. But for McIntosh and the other 500 members of UAW Local 287, it’s certainly a more urgent one.
The workers, who make transfer cases for the Ford F-150 and Ford Explorer at a Borg Warner plant in Muncie, Ind., learned in February 2007 that their plant would be closed and their work moved to Mexico.
“They just came out with this, bam, we’re closing the plant, nothing leading up to it,” said McIntosh, the local’s vice president. “They’re telling us they can’t be competitive unless they’re paying Third-World wages.”
In their last contract members agreed to cost-savings measures worth millions of dollars in the hope of keeping the plant open. “I think ‘being competitive’ is an excuse to destroy the union,” said McIntosh. “The company’s making record profits, and our plant has been one of their main money makers.”
Borg Warner plans to close the facility in April 2009. Workers will be eligible for Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), a program that provides extended unemployment and job training benefits to people who have lost their jobs to trade deals. President Bush and congressional Republicans have proposed funding caps and regulatory changes that would make it harder for workers to qualify for benefits.
As the TAA program now stands, McIntosh and his coworkers will be eligible for unemployment benefits for up to two years as long as they’re in school. Last fall, congressional Democrats tried to increase funding for the TAA program and extend its coverage to public-sector workers. The legislation passed in the House but was blocked by Senate Republicans.
Local 287’s bargaining committee is also pushing the company for a fair severance deal that recognizes workers’ contributions to Borg Warner. If an adequate package is negotiated, McIntosh, who has 25 years at the plant, plans to go to school to become an electronic systems technician. He hopes that with the training he can find a job at an area telephone or cable company.
“My faith is in God, but I have to be realistic,” says McIntosh. “Without a buyout, and with me being 50, what am I going to do?”
His wife of 17 years, Jama, cleans classrooms at Ball State University. She doesn’t earn the kind of wages her husband does but “it’s decent,” and her job will provide a basic level of health insurance for the family after the plant closes.
The couple has a 15-year-old son, Will, as well as three adult children.
“I’m most worried about my son,” says McIntosh. “In three years he’s going to be in college. If the plant stayed open, I would be able to pay for it. That’s what I worry about the most. He’s first.
“And I worry about the economy in Muncie because we’re the last big manufacturer here, and it’s going to devastate our community.”
As a member of the local chaplaincy committee, McIntosh spends a good part of his time counseling his fellow workers.
“There are a lot of workers who are not as blessed as I am. They just have the one income,” he says. “People out here are really stressed. A lot are not handling it well.
“It’s just a sad thing in America today. Companies just have to get richer and richer no matter what. And they’re wiping out the middle class,” says McIntosh.
McIntosh says there’s nothing “free” about free trade. “NAFTA is killing this country, and some representatives and senators are finally admitting it wasn’t what they thought it was going to be.”
That’s the opening McIntosh thinks workers need this election year. Wrong-headed trade policies, he says, will continue to destroy jobs and communities unless working people become more politically engaged.
“A lot of people don’t take it seriously because they think all politicians are alike,” he says. “I don’t believe that. Republicans do not take care of working people. I just think that as a country we need to make politicians accountable – and that’s Democrats, too.”
“I believe we can get it turned around. If we can get the right president in there, we can start a reversal,” he says of the job-killing trade agreements. “I’m very hopeful.”
