GM Overhaul Leaves UAW Readying for Battle : Labor: Some say the move could weaken the union as members are pitted against each other in attempts to keep their plants alive.
Malorie Norris, who fastens roll-on strips of paint to the Cadillacs and Caprices built at General Motors’ Arlington, Tex., car assembly plant, doesn’t like competing with fellow union members.
But GM’s announcement on Wednesday that it will choose 21 of its 35 plants to close in the coming year has wrought havoc with the notion of worker solidarity, as United Auto Workers locals across the country scramble to persuade the world’s largest auto maker that theirs is the superior work force.
Analysts say GM’s move may be an attempt to weaken the union by lighting fear in the hearts of its locals.
“They’re our brothers and sisters in the union,” Norris says of the workers at the Willow Run assembly plant in Ypsilanti, Mich., which GM has designated as Arlington’s competitor in the race for survival. “But the company says it’s them or us and that’s the way it’s going to be.”
By not naming the plants it intends to close, GM left workers and union officials with the hope that if they can come up with the right package of improved cost, quality and contract flexibility, their plant will earn the privilege of staying open at a time when the auto giant has committed itself to shrinking.
Robert C. Stempel, GM’s chairman, denied on Wednesday that the company was deliberately pitting plants against each other to “whipsaw” them into offering concessions. But a series of wildcat strikes and the union’s refusal to reopen its contract in a year when GM is likely to lose $2.6 billion has created sharp friction between Stempel and the UAW.
“These plants will be negotiating from their own economic position,” said Sean MacAlinden, a labor economist at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute. “They’ll be acting like independent little unions, which is real bad for the UAW, and real good for the company.”
No matter which of its 15 parts and six assembly plants GM padlocks, analysts say the massive contraction will result in upheaval and confusion. Under the UAW contract, laid-off workers with higher seniority are given the chance to transfer to open plants, bumping out those with less years at the company. So younger workers, such as 32-year-old Norris, fear for their jobs even if their plants are kept open.
At Willow Run and Arlington--whose combined 7,900 workers build GM’s poor-selling, full-size, rear-wheel-drive cars such as the Buick Roadmaster and the Cadillac Brougham--local union leaders spent Thursday juggling numbers and readying for battle.
“All our suppliers are within 100 miles of us,” said Ray Pollman, 60, who sits on the bargaining committee of Willow Run’s local. “Arlington, Tex., doesn’t got nothing around it except desert. It costs $1,100 to ship a boxcar of parts down there and it costs $200 to ship it here. Now where are you going to have your plant?”
Both locals said they were looking for direction from UAW headquarters on how to proceed. But other than a short statement decrying “whipsawing,” the union has so far declined comment on the GM move and what role it would take in the upcoming flurry of negotiations.
Former UAW President Douglas Fraser noted that the retrenchment, though likely to be painful for many, would not necessarily weaken the union. Rather, as GM consolidates its operations, it will be easier for the UAW to shut them down through strikes.
“A smaller union, certainly, but not necessarily weaker,” Fraser said of the UAW’s future. “The strength of the union--this is an old saying of ours--is to make GM say yes when they want to say no. As long as you have the power to withdraw your labor you’re still a strong union.”
