Workers at Caterpillar Lost a Battle, but the War Goes On

Maybe when corporate bosses smash a union, there’s dancing in the street--Wall Street, that is.

At least, that seemed to happen, figuratively, after Caterpillar Inc. won what many believed was a complete victory over the United Auto Workers on April 14. That was the day the union unexpectedly called off its five-month strike. Stock market gamblers have since pushed up Cat’s stock by 12%.

They apparently believe that the company’s initial success was the end of its war against its 13,000 UAW-represented workers.

However, another battle is starting. The war isn’t over yet.

The workers clearly lost the battle when they agreed to return to their jobs with no gains and no hint that the company will improve its “last, final offer,” which the workers had voted overwhelmingly to reject. That offer included a slight pay raise, weakened seniority and reduced medical benefits.

But the stock market gamblers should beware. Negotiations will resume Thursday with the help of Bernard DeLury, head of the Federal Mediation Service. And the workers could win with their new tactics.

Even the company isn’t certain the union has really capitulated. Cat is lining up thousands of “permanent” strikebreakers, just in case the strike is renewed. It was Cat’s decision to start permanently replacing strikers with scabs that forced the union to end the walkout in the first round of the fight.

The company, though, apparently figured that it clearly had done so well that its officers, led by hard-nosed Chairman Donald Fites, scorned DeLury’s proposal that both the company and union renew their negotiations with no preconditions.

In contrast, the union agreed to call off the strike unconditionally, as DeLury suggested, and to reconsider its proposal that Cat follow a 50-year “pattern bargaining” tradition by accepting a contract comparable to one reached with John Deere & Co.

Perhaps the market gamblers figured the renewed negotiations would only be used to administer the coup de grace to the UAW.

But the union has some war plans of its own. It is going to use tough tactics even while negotiations go on.

For example, union members are expected to “work by the book,” which means that they will do only what is specifically mandated by written company rules. That may sound innocuous, but it can significantly slow production.

“We expect our members to do only the work they must to save their jobs,” explains Bill Casstevens, UAW secretary-treasurer and director of the union’s Caterpillar unit.

That work-by-the-book tactic should be popular among the workers. They have been employed by Cat for an average of 24 years, and many were infuriated by the company’s ugly decision to permanently replace them if they didn’t end the strike.

Cat’s action soured several years of steadily increasing labor-management harmony and substantially increased productivity, and resentment among the workers is now high. Even in a 205-day strike in 1982-83, the company didn’t resort to an attempt to permanently fire strikers.

That union-busting maneuver had never been used by Cat until after Fites came on in 1990 as chairman and chief executive to “shape up” the profitable company, largest of its kind in the world.

The union is planning more than working by the book to squeeze the company so much that another strike can be avoided.

The UAW is sending requests for help, and getting it, from foreign unions that represent Cat workers in Belgium, Great Britain, France, Brazil, Japan and South Africa. Some of them have already staged brief walkouts in support of the UAW, and more, perhaps longer ones, are planned.

Unions in this country are also being asked to help in what is clearly a watershed dispute for all U.S. unions.

Cat is the first large manufacturing company to use the permanent strike-replacement weapon--it is illegal in almost all other countries--and if the company wins everything at the bargaining table, or breaks the union in another strike, that could become management’s weapon of choice generally.

Several U.S. unions sent financial contributions to Cat workers during the strike and promise more if a new strike is called.

The U.S. unions should go much further. Their members should refuse to deliver Cat products in this country. That would involve primarily members of the Teamsters. Members of longshore unions on both coasts should refuse to load the company’s products on ships for sales abroad.

There may be legal complications, but civil disobedience is not new in this country, and lawsuits, if any, are usually wiped out by both sides as part of a final contract settlement.

The stakes are high for all unions, and by using the tougher tactics, the dispute at Cat could mark a revival of meaningful labor solidarity and help stave off further deterioration of organized labor.