P.M. BRIEFING : UAW Chief Decries High Pay for Executives, Urges Change

United Auto Workers President Owen Bieber, denouncing another year of exorbitantly high pay for top auto executives, called today for fundamental changes between management and labor to put UAW workers on a more secure footing.

In opening a three-day conference in Detroit for the union’s skilled trades workers, Bieber said the nation’s auto makers--not the auto workers--are responsible for improving product quality and bolstering the competitive position of U.S. manufacturers.

“America’s industrial challenge is not a little bit management’s fault and a little bit the union’s fault,” Bieber told the about 1,200 union delegates at the Westin Hotel. “It’s management’s failures, plain and simple, that have put us in the precarious situation we face in so many sectors today.

“The big buck syndrome in Detroit is a disease that’s still in need of a cure,” union leader said. “The auto industry has real and pressing problems, but the companies signal only arrogance and business-as-usual attitudes through these excessive payments to senior executives.”