Myth #2 — Giving up concessions to the corporations will save your job.
In fact, giving up concessions will only encourage the corporations to come back to a union for EVEN MORE concessions the next time around.
In regards to the IUAW — after decades of the Administration Caucus giving the Detroit Three concessions contract after contract in the hopes of curbing job loss — the corporations now feel so emboldened, they actually demand concessions in the middle of National Agreements.
On April 19, 2018, IUAW Vice President Cindy Estrada agreed to open the 2015 contract with General Motors, in order to outsource all material jobs at both the Lordstown and Orion Assembly plants. These material jobs were to be outsourced to GM Subsystems, LLC, where the workers would be paid roughly half the wages of a traditional UAW autoworker.
Estrada explained the IUAW’s rationale on the UAW/GM Talks blog stating that, “GM recently came to us to consider changes at the small car plants that would make them more competitive – which means keeping jobs in our plants.”
As we all now know how the story went, Lordstown was closed — despite the union offering the company $118 million dollars worth of concessions per year.
“Everything they (GM) asked us to do, we did,” Local 1112 Shop Chairman Dan Morgan said at the time. “And still, we don’t have a product to build.”
Lordstown never got another product. They were a valuable plant to General Motors CEO Mary Barra, until they weren’t. Then she cut their throat with zero remorse for the thousands of workers that were put in limbo or the communities that would be devastated by her decision. She did the same to plants in Baltimore, Warren, Oshawa, and Fontana.
That’s one hell of an abusive partnership.
She will assuredly continue this practice during the life of the 2019 National Agreement as well.
In a recent article published by GM Authority, Barra was already back on the offensive — despite securing another pro-corporate National Agreement by the UAW. “There’s a lot of conversation about job security,” Barra said at the Barclay’s Global Automotive Conference in November. “Job security is not something you negotiate. Job security is something that you earn. And making sure they all understand that and their role is something we’ll double down on as we go forward.”
Barra is doubling down on the idea of “continuous improvement,” i.e. squeezing even more concessions out of the remaining workforce. Those plants that are unwilling to cut even more jobs, overload the remaining jobs, work 9 to 12 hour shifts 6 or sometimes even 7 days a week, reduced benefits, temps, etc, will be on the chopping block.
These corporations will always — always — play hard ball. They are cut throat and highly strategic. They have zero empathy for the workers that make them billions of dollars every year. We are merely a number to them. Nothing more than human robots. And they will abuse us until we are no longer as profitable as possible for the bottom line, and then they will dispose of us at the first opportunity — just like they have to hundreds of thousands of workers already.
So why is the IUAW showing up to a gun fight with the corporations armed only with a nine iron and a box of Chino’s Cigars?
Because the IUAW actually buys into the corporate competitive line of thinking. The Administration Caucus believes that workers should be willing to give more and more in order to make the corporations even more profitable than they already were the previous year.
GM made $11 billion dollars last year? Great, but, guess what? They want $15 billion this year. So where is that money going to come from? It’s going to come at the expense of the quality of the vehicles via the continued outsourcing of parts to the cheapest bidder. It’s going to come from the skeleton crews of overloaded workers inside of the plants. It’s going to come via line speed up. And it’s going to come from the continued closing of American production plants while work is outsourced to low-wage countries.
And where is the IUAW during all of this? Every contract that is agreed to, the Administration Caucus always tells us that workers got a good deal. That job security was achieved, only for the corporations to continue downsizing their US footprint.
During the six-week strike at General Motors earlier this year, IUAW Vice President Terry Dittes continually brought up job security as being one of the major sticking points during the negotiations.
In 2015, former IUAW President Dennis Williams assured workers, “we believe that this agreement will present stable long-term significant wage gains and job security commitments to U.A.W. members now and in the future.”
After the 2011 negotiations, former IUAW Vice President Joe Ashton said, “The basics of what we went into this agreement looking for was jobs, jobs, jobs, and I think that’s what we came out with.”
During the 2007 contract negotiations, former IUAW President Ron Gettlefinger said he thought workers would be “very pleased with the outcome of these negotiation and the job security associated with it.” In 2003, Gettlefinger and the IUAW allowed GM to close over a dozen plants and make thousands of job cuts.
There’s a scene in the 1995 mobster movie “Casino” that I often think of in regards to the Administration Caucus and it’s inept ability to actually protect the membership from the constant threats of the corporations.
In this particular scene of the movie, Robert De Niro’s character Ace Rothstein — who runs the Tangier’s Casino — fires a casino worker for allowing customers to continually scam him. The worker argues with Rothstein that he shouldn’t be fired, despite the continual screw ups. Rothstein’s answer is classic.
”Listen, if you didn’t know you were being scammed you’re too dumb to keep this job, if you did know, you were in on it. Either way, YOU’RE OUT! Get out!”
I always envision the casino worker as representing the Administration Caucus and Ace Rothstein playing the part of the UAW membership.
Either the Administration Caucus is too dumb (highly unlikely), or self-absorbed to realize their corporate strategies don’t work for the membership, or they are in on the “partnership” scam with the corporations.
Either way, its time for the Administration Caucus to go. Concessions won’t save our jobs. They never have.