GM-UAW: Still No Deal as Patience Wears Thin
September 19, 2007
Negotiators for General Motors and the United Auto Workers union head back to the bargaining table Wednesday after a marathon session over the weekend. Talks ended at 9 p.m. Tuesday night.
Meantime, the union is making noise that it is growing increasingly impatient by threatening to set a strike deadline to speed up the progress. Frankly, the strike talk seems more like bluster than substance. A strike would be devastating to the union, which is bleeding jobs and thus paying members, even more than GM, which can shuffle vehicle production offshore.
While contracts of the past have been wrapped up within a couple of days of the expiration, it is not shocking that these talks are lingering on. Both sides are confronted with the most complicated issues in recent times.
More than any other labor talks in recent history, these between GM and UAW are shrouded in secrecy. Leaks are few.
All the union leadership would say about the progress of the talks is progress has been made in some areas but several major issues must be resolved. And the union won't wait forever. It will set a strike deadline if the pace doesn't pick up.
GM hasn't uttered a word.
The major sticking point is believed to be health-care costs for employees and retirees. GM and the UAW are in general agreement about forming a trust fund into which GM will make deposits to cover health-care costs and the union will manage. The debate is in the details: how much cash and how much, if any, stock? Will there be provisions if GM’s deposits are not enough?
Another area of contention is pension costs. Bloomberg News reported Wednesday that GM wants to eliminate traditional pensions for blue-collar workers, replacing them with 401(k)s.
There’s also the usual issues over pay. GM reportedly wants to freeze cost-of-living raises to help pay for a union-run health-care fund. There's talk of a two-tier wage structure, as there always is. And there’s discussion over paying union workers a bonus -– possibly in lieu of wage increases -– for signing the new agreement.
The UAW’s contract with GM, Ford and Chrysler expired at midnight last Friday. The union, Ford and Chrysler agreed to a contract extension as the UAW negotiated with lead target, GM. The union is extending its contract with GM on an hour-by-hour basis.
Posted by Michelle Krebs at 7:39 AM under Commentary , GM | Comments (1) | digg this | Seed Newsvine
GETTELFINGER VEBA DELIVERS UAW RETIREES TO GATES OF POVERTY?
Didn’t Gettelfinger already slice up retirees with the help of a couple of blue collar brown nose turn-coats in 2005 that went to court to void the legal ramifications of the contract pertaining to fellow retirees? Didn’t they together already force struggling retirees to reduce their feeble pensions to pay for badly needed health care?
Weren’t retirees supposed to be untouchable until 2011?
Retirees are not allowed to vote, so how many times will this gullible Gettelfinger want to reopen the contract to again attack defenseless forgotten retirees who fought the good fight for today’s workers? What kind of unionism is Gettelfinger and his tiny group of three vice-presidents subjecting the UAW”s hundreds of thousands of retirees to?
Rewarding workers with bonuses to devastate and sell-out innocent retirees and their spouses won’t solve the problem. What kind of tacky solidarity and unionism is this?
Gettelfinger’s chump signing bonus is a backhanded swindle that is not comparable to what all retirees will lose going forward. The only ones smiling will be the corporate executives as they cash in their even larger bonuses because they put the big one over this small handful of gullible UAW leaders.
Autoworkers have been demonized and falsely accused when the industry problems have clearly been from huge management mistakes over decades. Workers have given painful concessions and their concessions have funded the building of more foreign plants, which translated into the evaporation of two thirds of their jobs. Gettelfinger has been around for 30 years. Where was he as these jobs disappeared?
The company’s promises to guarantee employment have been proven to be empty lies that are not worth the paper they are written on. Don’t workers know this by now?
These shocking retiree cuts will free up funds for further corporate foreign expansion. Remember this in five years after Gettelfinger and his little group of three captain vice-presidents, who are together doing this to hundreds of thousands of trusting retirees, are comfortably retired on their very lucrative, comfortable and secure pensions. Are local union presidents supporting their retirees? If not, why not? Ask them.
This tiny handful of people, who call themselves UAW leaders, have refused to get off their cowardly yellow knees and grow a backbone. Their groveling has been an embarrassment to union solidarity, which has served to destroy the cause of labor as they disrespect, attack and sacrifice their powerless retirees.
Silence is not golden on this gut-wrenching contract. Read closely, copy and pass on the following profoundly important links …now.
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Posted by: K.H. | September 22, 2007 at 2:12 PM