Squabble at the UAW : Local at Douglas Aircraft Co. Seeks to Oust Regional Director

As the aerospace industry in Southern California shrinks dramatically, the divisions in the United Auto Workers over how to answer the challenge only get uglier and deeper.

UAW Local 148, which represents more than 19,000 Douglas Aircraft workers in Long Beach, is seeking to oust the union’s regional director, Bruce Lee, from current contract talks. The local alleges that Lee has a conflict of interest that has hurt union efforts to stem the exodus of aerospace jobs from the Southland.

In a letter to UAW President Owen Bieber, the local’s president, Richard Rios, has called for Lee to be “excluded from any further involvement” in the contract talks. Douglas workers have been working without a contract for six months and have twice voted down management proposals--despite the UAW headquarters’ recommendation that they be accepted.

Bieber could not be reached for comment, but he is said to be very unhappy with Rios and the quality of his leadership.

A key element in the squabble is Rios’ charge that international officials have done little to keep high-paying aerospace jobs in Southern California. The Douglas plant has lost thousands of assembly jobs to other states, local union leaders note.

The dispute is the latest in a long-running war between Local 148, one of the UAW’s largest, and international union officials, including Lee, who heads the UAW’s nine-state western region.

The differences--a microcosm of a conflict that has vexed the auto workers union--boil down, in large measure, to the charge by local union officials that the UAW leadership is too cozy with management.

In his Aug. 29 letter to Bieber, Rios criticized Lee for his work heading a nonprofit union affiliate, the UAW Labor Employment & Training Corp. Known as LETC, the organization--which has 17 field offices in California--trains the hard-core unemployed and negotiates with companies such as Douglas Aircraft to retrain laid-off workers.

It is Lee’s dual role--as UAW labor negotiator and LETC contract negotiator--that represents a potential conflict of interest, Rios told Bieber.

“The potential of a conflict in interests looms over these (contract) negotiations as well as everything Bruce does in the region,” Rios wrote, charging that Lee is “union by name and management by deed.”

In an interview, Rios said that LETC had established an operation in Salt Lake City to train workers for a new, non-union Douglas Aircraft plant. When the plant reaches its full capacity, it will employ 2,000 workers and perform work that used to be done in Long Beach, Local 148 officials say.

“Bruce Lee bragged to me that he was one of the major players in getting the state to provide the funding for the Douglas plant in Utah,” said Floyd Sparks, another Local 148 official.

In an interview, Lee called Sparks’ comments an “absolute, bald-faced lie.” LETC’s operation in Utah trains the hard-core unemployed to be auto mechanics and does not supply workers for Douglas’ new manufacturing facility there, he said.

His job as chairman of LETC, Lee said, entails leading several board meetings a year--not running its daily operations.

The conflict has become highly personal.

Lee calls Rios the biggest “fool I’ve ever met in 35 years in the union movement.” Replies Rios: “He may think I’m a fool, but I come from the rank-and-file, and I think he has lost touch with the workers throughout the whole region.”

According to Lee, Rios and his associates are deliberately trying to prevent ratification of a contract at Douglas to further their efforts to oust him as western regional director at a union convention next year.

“It’s politics,” Lee said. “If the agreement is ratified, they would have a tough time saying what a son of a bitch Bruce Lee is.”

Southern California has been a battleground for local UAW politics in recent years. The union’s effort to install Japanese-style work rules at the General Motors auto assembly plant in Van Nuys was bitterly opposed by the leadership of UAW Local 645. That plant is scheduled to close next summer.

Despite voting down a contract endorsed both by management and some local and national union leaders, Douglas Aircraft workers have chosen not to call a strike. The four-year contract called for raises totaling 14% and a one-year lump-sum increase of 4%, but also required worker concessions on scheduling and health benefits.

Huge job losses in the aerospace industry have become a potent issue in state business and political circles. Local 148 held a rally on Labor Day to dramatize the exodus, but union leaders say international officials chose not to attend.

The rally, held at a Long Beach high school, was attended by Gov. Pete Wilson. “More than anything else, the international was trying to do everything it could to make sure the rally was a flop,” Rios said in an interview.

Supporters said the event was a success, but Lee indicated that the rally was attended by only “100-some people out of 20,000” union members. In his own defense, Lee indicated that he has long supported the state’s aerospace industry by working through the state’s political leadership to keep jobs in the state.

Ronald L. Cedillos, a Long Beach aerospace executive who is spearheading efforts to stem the job exodus, said that international officials need to do more to retain aerospace jobs in the Southland.

“I am surprised the international segment of the union has not taken a leadership role in saving aerospace jobs,” Cedillos said in a phone interview.