Decision Day : Bitter Union Election to Have Far-Reaching Impact at Douglas
It was the morning after the Aug. 12 union election at Douglas Aircraft Co., and Bob Berghoff was fuming.
The deposed United Auto Workers Local 148 president had been forced into a Sept. 1 runoff against his former friend and confidant, Doug Griffith, and he was certain the first election had been stolen.
“We won this election, and they cheated us out of it again . . . ,” insisted Berghoff, who is seeking a third three-year term as president of the largest union at Long Beach’s largest employer.
His anger was aimed at the U.S. Department of Labor, which administered the election under federal court order, and at the company that tabulated the results. He also suspected, Berghoff said, that the UAW international union, which had deposed him in May, might have had a hand in the tally. It left him with 46.2%, just short of the majority needed for victory in the three-way race.
But Berghoff could not support his complaints of election irregularities.
The next day, his appeal for a recount was rejected by U.S. District Judge Wallace Tashima, who said he detected “almost a paranoia” about the vote tally. No proof had been offered to indicate fraud, the judge said.
Berghoff and Griffith say they have spent at least $35,000 between them in an increasingly bitter campaign that is one of the most significant in the history of labor relations at Douglas Aircraft.
The election will bring the company back to the bargaining table, both candidates say.
That could lead to an end of labor unrest that has delayed delivery of at least 10 airliners since November and, industry analysts say, has hurt Douglas’ reputation with airline customers.
In recent months, as a worker slowdown has limited production, Douglas has become entrenched as a distant third in competition with Boeing and Europe’s Airbus Industrie for new aircraft orders. Its share of new orders has dropped from 18% in 1986 to 12% during the first half of 1987, analysts say.
Worker contracts at the massive Douglas plant in Long Beach and a smaller one in Torrance expired last October. Of the nine unions at Douglas, only the UAW, which represents 10,000 of 28,900 workers, still has no agreement.
Tuesday’s election is significant, too, since it appears to be a referendum on the type of tough, confrontational leadership the volatile Berghoff, a Douglas employee since 1966, has provided since first elected local president in 1981.
Admirers say Berghoff, 43, is a top-flight orator and unionist who has fought a nationwide trend toward concessionary labor contracts.
But the 48-year-old Griffith, chairman of Local 148’s bargaining committee until removed by Berghoff in 1986, says Berghoff’s style of negotiation is obsolete and has hurt both the union and the company.
“This total adversarial relationship between companies and the unions must come to an end in this country,” Griffith said. “There will always be a struggle at contract time over who gets what portion of the profit pie, but between contracts we need to find a more cooperative way of doing things.”
In his campaign fliers, Griffith has characterized Berghoff’s leadership as a “never settle anything unprofessional style (that) has made a lot of headlines and noise but has only produced losses for all of us.”
Berghoff and Griffith were both leaders in Local 148’s failed, 17-week strike in 1983 and 1984.
But during the current round of negotiations, Griffith has accused Berghoff of refusing to seriously bargain with Douglas and with avoiding settlement.
“He never let us bargain,” said Griffith, who remained on the union’s negotiating team until talks reached an impasse in March. “At first, he was determined to try his in-plant (worker slowdown) strategy. . . . Then, negotiations simply became a mechanism for him to try to get reelected.”
But Berghoff said Douglas, not him, has stalled, hoping that Griffith will be elected president.
“The company made it very clear they were not going to conclude negotiations in hopes that I would be replaced (by Griffith). . . . He was touting the company’s contract months ago. . . . We’ve had many (contract) improvements since then. Had Doug Griffith had his way, this contract would have been bought and sold with many, many concessions.”
Berghoff said he split with Griffith in 1986 after years of working closely with him “because he started taking stands that harmed our members. . . . Without somebody to take a stand in their best interests, they can expect basically a company-dominated union.”
Both candidates say their initial rift occurred last year during noncontract negotiations with Douglas about an innovative program where workers would share company profits when productivity increased.
Each said he thought the so-called gain-sharing program was a good idea, as did Douglas.
Berghoff said he lost faith in Griffith when he said safeguards against layoffs, a key aspect of the program, were not absolutely necessary.
Griffith, however, said he protested when Berghoff insisted on using a union-selected accountant to check Douglas’ books, rather than any of the nation’s top accounting firms, as Douglas had offered.
The union was to get access to company books to determine historical costs of aircraft production so that increased productivity could be identified and rewarded.
“That’s when he started holding gain-sharing hostage,” Griffith said. Berghoff began to say to Douglas, “ ‘If you don’t give us this, then no gain-sharing. That’s cutting off your nose to spite your face.’
“What’s spoiling things is his hold-hostage mentality. That’s his flaw. That’s his weakness. That’s the reason he and the company have been in absolute turmoil since he’s been president,” Griffith said.
‘Desperate Search’
Berghoff says Griffith is telling lies in his “desperate search” for issues to use against him.
And Berghoff defends his aggressive approach to negotiations, saying that it is not the union’s job to protect the company during bargaining.
“We don’t sell airplanes. The union doesn’t do that and never has,” he said.
Working closely with leadership of Douglas’ second largest union, the International Association of Machinists, Berghoff helped direct the “work-by-the-book” slowdown strategy that both unions say forced the pay-and-pension concessions IAM received when it signed a new contract last month.
Impact on Customers
Whatever benefits workers gained by the slowdown, the company’s inability to deliver planes on time probably has hurt it in the minds of its customers, two aerospace industry analysts said.
“Everybody has labor problems, but Douglas has recurring labor problems. It certainly makes airlines wonder if they can depend on the deliveries,” said John Simon, of Seidler AMDEC Securities in Los Angeles.
“They have to look at who they’re up against and decide, would they rather work or would they rather play. Of course, how long can you play on unemployment,” Simon said.
New York analyst Wolfgang Demisch of First Boston Corp. said Douglas’ chronic labor problems and late deliveries are a “painful handicap” that will make it harder to get new orders.
“When you leave a customer stranded, the customer tends not to forget,” he said.
Share Has Fallen
Industry statistics show that Douglas’ share of new orders has fallen.
It had 112 of 613, or 18%, of the orders received by the top three manufacturers in 1986. It received 47 of 395 orders, or 12%, during the first six months of this year.
Douglas has said it is ready to resume negotiations after Tuesday’s election is certified by Judge Tashima, who entered the case after Berghoff sued the international union to try to regain control of the local in June.
Key issues will probably still be proposed health insurance fees on workers and retirees, and changes in work rules that the union has said would undercut worker seniority.
Berghoff said if he is elected, he will also take another issue to the table--his reinstatement and that of 15 other Douglas workers who were fired in June for leading a half-day walkout to protest the international union’s takeover.
Back pay will also be demanded for 350 protesters who were suspended for 10 days, he said. But he said those issues would not block agreement on a new contract if it were otherwise acceptable.
