UAW Van Nuys Vote: Where Does Union Go in the ‘80s?

The election Tuesday for the chairmanship of the union bargaining committee at the General Motors factory in Van Nuys is far more than a contest over who will hold the most powerful position in the United Auto Workers local at Southern California’s last auto assembly plant.

It is a contest that raises fundamental issues about just what a union should be in the late 1980s, and the results may be interpreted as a plebiscite on how workers feel about Japanese-style production methods.

Pete Beltran, incumbent president of UAW Local 645 and a longtime militant unionist, is giving up his current office to run for chairman of the bargaining committee because he is deeply opposed to the introduction of Japanese-style production methods.

As chairman, Beltran would be the top union official inside the plant, while the union president is frequently preoccupied with administrative duties in the local’s offices across the street. Beltran and his opponent for chairman, Richard Ruppert, have fielded slates of candidates, including allies seeking the presidency, but interest has centered on their race.

Beltran unabashedly paints himself as a traditional unionist and argues to fellow members that the new system will erode union protections, damage the national UAW and eventually cost jobs at the Van Nuys plant.

“ ‘Team concept’ is a scheme to maintain the same level of production with fewer people,” Beltran asserted.

Ruppert is viewed as a new style “cooperative” union leader and favors the Japanese-style system--dubbed “team concept”--that already is being phased in at Van Nuys. He tells colleagues that the team concept will give workers more responsibility and power on the job. He also contends that it is essential to prolong the life of the factory, which until late last year was in danger of closing.

He said the new system will give workers a greater sense of self-worth. “A person defines himself by what he does. When you don’t have to think, you define yourself as less important.”

The election marks the latest chapter in a four-year controversy over the plant’s future.

The new production system is being gradually phased in, after worker training last month at a Woodland Hills Junior High School. But a group led by Beltran is still challenging it before the courts and the National Labor Relations Board.

The election campaign also has ramifications for national relations between GM and 350,000 UAW members who work for the company. For nearly half a century, UAW has negotiated national agreements with GM, the world’s largest car maker, and augmented the national contracts with local agreements.

This summer, negotiations on a new national agreement will begin, but that contract will not have nearly as much significance as in the past. That is because throughout the country UAW locals have been making fundamental changes in working conditions through their local agreements.

“A national revolution is taking part, but it’s occurring locally,” said Harley Shaiken, professor of work and technology at the University of California, San Diego. “What we’re seeing is a fundamental shift in how production is organized, taking place on a plant-by-plant basis.”

Last May, workers at Van Nuys narrowly approved a major change in their contract in hopes of prolonging the life of the plant and gaining increased job security. About 53% of the plant’s 4,500 hourly employees voted to institute the team concept, in which workers function in small teams that have greater responsibility in the production process and quality control.

‘Team Concept’

The vote came after a series of layoffs and a three-year campaign by workers to persuade GM to keep the plant open. Many workers said at the time of the vote that they viewed the team concept as the only way to ensure the continued operation of the plant, which makes Chevrolet Camaros and Pontiac Firebirds. Workers also said they believed that they were in competition with the Norwood, Ohio, plant where the same cars are made. Last November, after the Norwood workers also had voted approval of a team concept system, GM announced that the Norwood plant would be closed sometime in 1987.

Eric Mann, a former plant activist who is allied with Beltran, describes the situation at the San Fernando Valley plant as typical of what he terms a disturbing trend in the UAW’s relationship to GM. The UAW is “changing from an alliance of locals united against the company to individual locals attempting to unite with the company against each other,” he said.

How System Works

Under the new system at Van Nuys, the assembly line can be stopped if workers see a problem. Eventually, time clocks are supposed to be eliminated. Workers and managers will eat in the same cafeteria and park their cars in the same lot, a break from the past.

And, significantly, scores of job classifications have been eliminated. Now, there are simply “team leaders” and “team members.”

These changes have been embraced by many workers as an opportunity to break the monotony of the assembly line. “Now we have a chance to use our brains,” said Juan Adame, an 18-year employee and team leader.

But, according to Beltran and others, the changes threaten the workers. Ultimately, he said, the new system would lead to the loss of 800 jobs.

‘Don’t Think It’s Compatible’

“It sets up a system where a guy may wear three hats--employee, supervisor and labor representative,” Beltran said. “I don’t think it’s compatible with American labor law.”

One close observer of the plant, who is neither a union member nor GM employee and who played a key role in training workers for the new system, believes that the changes will be in the workers’ long-term interests. But the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that the new system could shift a lot of conflict from the labor-management bargaining room into the union itself.

Beltran, who first went to work on the assembly line at Van Nuys in 1958, also said the team concept effectively eliminates the traditional seniority system. For example, he said team leaders, who were chosen jointly by the union and management, would be given “super-seniority” (meaning preference over all team members, regardless of seniority) if there are layoffs. And older, veteran workers will no longer automatically have first crack at jobs that are less physically demanding.

Detrimental Effects

Beltran, 47, asserted that the changes could have long-term detrimental effects on the entire UAW. He said that allowing the introduction of Japanese-style production systems, with individual plant variations, on a piecemeal basis is giving local unions so much autonomy that local agreements will, in effect, supersede the national agreement. “It sets up the potential for the breakdown of a national structure of a national union,” Beltran said.

Ruppert, 34, an auto worker since 1976, calls Beltran out of touch with changing realities. “It’s a shrinking industry,” he said. “There’s tremendous foreign competition.

“(Walter) Reuther (the UAW national president from 1946 to 1970) always argued that the workers were fighting for their piece of the pie, their fair share,” said Ruppert. “Now the existence of that pie is at stake. A lot of the adversarial things we did are extremely destructive.

“To build a quality car, you have to have some loyalty” to the company, Ruppert said. But he quickly made it clear that he doesn’t consider himself a patsy for GM. “It’s always been difficult to care about GM; it’s pretty difficult to care about them now.”

Tremendous Changes

Ruppert also asserted that although the new system would mean tremendous changes for the union, there was nothing inherently negative in it. “I’m very proud of what we’re doing. . . . Our agreement has not taken away the right to strike over work standards or health and safety. We’ll never give up the right to strike. . . .”

Ruppert and Beltran’s literature clearly illustrates the differences in their approaches. Ruppert’s flyers emphasize the need for workers to get more involved in planning car production with company officials. Beltran’s leaflets emphasize that change may be necessary but contend that traditional contract protections are still a must.

And quite noticeably, literature now being circulated in the plant on his behalf acknowledges that for the time being, “team concept” is a reality at the plant. The literature attempts to deal with fears workers may have of what will happen if they vote for Beltran, particularly workers who were laid off from July, 1986, until a few weeks ago when the team concept began.

‘Fight Against Abuses’

“Won’t Beltran stop the team concept and then GM will decide to close the plant?” a recent handbill asks. “No, Beltran wants the company to live up to its original team concept agreement, and he wants the union to be able to fight against the abuses we see occurring under the team concept.”

This is a reference to the fact that when the workers voted for the team concept last May, Bruce Lee, Western regional director of the UAW, said the new agreement would not be implemented “until we’ve got a commitment from GM for a new product (car) at Van Nuys.” Union officials want a more consistent-selling car as a hedge against future layoffs.

Subsequently, however, Lee and other union officials--but not Beltran--made a decision to move ahead on the team concept without such a guarantee. Thus far, the only assurance from GM is continued production of Camaros and Firebirds for “the foreseeable future.”