The American Spectator : My UAW Story

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My UAW Story

By G. Tracy Mehan, III on 12.16.08 @ 6:07AM

Is this a great country or what?

One of the sticking points in the negotiations for the bailout of the Big Three has been the question of how much more the United Auto Workers (UAW) should give up to save at least two of America's auto companies.

Clearly, more must be sacrificed to make the companies competitive with the foreign transplants and the other auto imports into the North American market. The substantial differential in the overall compensation package-wages, benefits, vacation, retirement, work rules and the like-cannot remain if, say, GM is to survive as anything other than a ward of the federal government. This is a hard truth, one that is painful to embrace absent the sharp lash of necessity.

My own personal UAW story involves an appeal of a denial of a permit to build a pole barn on a wetland in Michigan. I was working in the state environmental agency on Great Lakes issues at the time, the late-1990s. Since I was an attorney and had run regulatory programs in my home state of Missouri, I was asked to help clear up a backlog of cases through mediation and, hopefully, settlement without recourse to costly, full-blown administrative hearings complete with lawyers, court reporters, further appeals and aggravation for all involved.

One day I traveled to northern Michigan, to the field office in Gaylord, I think, about two-thirds of the way up the Lower Peninsula, the mitt of Michigan so to speak, to meet with the person appealing his permit denial.

As it turned out, the fellow appealing the unfavorable decision was from southeast Michigan, just outside of Detroit. He walked into the room accompanied by a GM legal insurance lawyer, with his wife. His four kids were waiting outside in his 30-foot Suburban.

He was a gregarious, big fellow, with muscular arms and a barrel chest. He sported a GM baseball cap and a T-shirt with UAW on it. Or maybe it was the reverse.

In any event, he was a very nice guy, a family man, which immediately put him on my good side. He had a place or cottage "up north," which everyone in Michigan, Wisconsin (including my wife) and Minnesota has, usually handed down through the generations. Seasonal migrations "up north" are rivaled only by the mass migration to Florida at spring break in that part of the country.

This fellow wanted to build this barn at his cottage, his home away from home.

"Mr. Mehan, I love the environment; but I have to build this barn," he said after we got through the pleasantries and down to business. "I own a jet ski, a party barge, a snow mobile and a boat. I can't leave them out through the winter, and I don't want to haul them back and forth each year."

What came of the mediation totally escapes my memory, but I vividly recall thinking about the lawyer, the wife, the four kids, the Suburban, the jet skis, the boat, the snow mobile, the party barge, and the fact this guy probably worked hard on an assembly line.

"Is this a great country or what?" was my first thought.

My second was: "This can't last -- can it?"

For decades people who worked for the Big Three were not working-class but definitely members of the middle class, without the tie or gray flannel suit. You could quit high school, if you were so inclined, and get a really well-paying job working on the lines at Ford, Chrysler and GM, although hard overtime was assumed. The pay-off was great wages, tremendous benefits, a lot of vacation and a wonderful retirement. It was not just a living wage, but a very robust and comprehensive compensation package. An autoworker could support a good-sized family without his wife having to take a job outside the home unless she wanted to.

It was an exceptional set of circumstances, not duplicated in many other industries or other parts of the country.

The Big Three and the UAW no longer dominate even our domestic market anymore. They carry heavy legacy costs, too many dealerships and old ways of thinking that hobble them in a global economy, Darwinian in its ruthless application of "creative destruction." They are struggling to adapt their old modes of labor and production to the grease-lightning speed and ever-changing configurations of an unforgiving marketplace.

My heart goes out to Michigan, my adopted state.

topics:
United Auto Workers, Michigan

About the Author

G. Tracy Mehan, III served at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the administrations of both Presidents Bush. He is a consultant in Arlington, Virginia, and an adjunct professor at George Mason University School of Law.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (21) | Leave a comment

Michael L. Hauschild| 12.16.08 @ 9:15AM

One of my earliest jobs was working for the Continental Can Company. There were over one thousand workers at our plant, most belonged to the Machinists Union. Eleven (just eleven) of the job force worked in the “Lithography” line, which painted the labels on soda pop cans. They were the highest paid people in the plant earning eleven dollars an hour, and wanted a raise to fourteen dollars an hour. Management refused and they called a strike. At the time was in the lowest pay scale (as were most) and only earned two dollars and seventy-five cents an hour. Those eleven people, backed by the Union closed the plant for three months. They got their raise; my probationary period of non-union membership ran out (unofficial of course), and due to that mentality I have never joined a Union even though I was “entitled” (nepotism) through my fathers trade.
Several times after that, and needing work, I signed up for “on permit” programs. One time with the Iron Workers because it was “too cold” for them to work on a rising crew, they sat in the Union Hall and played cards while I worked for half wage paying their benefits). The other time was for the Operators Union and they let me on a job because they needed a piece of equipment my family owned. My fathers trade was as a Steamfitter, he is now in a home and despite years of service gets no pension at all because he worked for himself “part time” in another trade.
No doubt Unions have a purpose, after all I have made some earnings in Union shops, but the pendulum is going to have to swing back the other direction before they get any of my sympathy or support.

Derek P| 12.16.08 @ 9:19AM

I used to think that I was an idiot for actually taking the time, effort, and money to go to college (while working 25 hours per week as well the last 2 1/2 years); get a low paying entry level job; and then after 8 years working up to a decent paying middle mgmt job and STILL making much less than a GM line worker with at most a high school diploma. I don't now that is for sure. Kudus to those who took advantage of that deal when they could as I would've as well but its time has come to an end and the end result may be killing the goose that laid the golden egg. I wonder if any GM/Ford retiree at the moment feels any tinge of guilt at all? I am not necessarily saying they should as I would've taken all that I could've gotten as well but I just wonder. Their standard of living came at the cost of lost jobs of their children and grandchildren.

Paul| 12.16.08 @ 9:52AM

All unions (with the possible exception of government employee unions) eventually put their members out of work. It is only a matter of time.

Thomas| 12.16.08 @ 11:03AM

Quote: "You could quit high school, if you were so inclined, and get a really well-paying job working on the lines . . ."

Uh..NO, actually you couldn't just 'get a job'. You had to know someone, be related to someone, or befriend someone on the inside. I don't know about bribery; I can only suspect that it would also work.

The point being, you just couldn't fill out an application and 'get a job'; someone you were connected to, got you in.

Derek P| 12.16.08 @ 11:33AM

Quote: "The point being, you just couldn't fill out an application and 'get a job'; someone you were connected to, got you in."
I beg to differ in some instances. A family that lived across the street from my Grandmother for years had the fortune of this. The father was/is truely not quite right. He has some mental issues. When a new stamping plant opened here in Indpls. and basically hired who ever showed up he came up from Kentucky and got a job there. After hiring him they quick discovered that he not suited to do most tasks in the factory so since they couldn't fire him he literaly did busy work for over 30 years retiring with a fat pension and full FREE medical benefits. My grandfather on the other hand made the mistake of not going there to get a job and eventhough he was a teamster for 40 years never received anything close to what "Dale" got when he retired.

Robert| 12.16.08 @ 11:47AM

My dad, several of his brothers and my mom's dad moved to Michigan from Arkansas in the late 50's, early 60's. They were used to long hours of farming and were able to walk off the street and get jobs. I think that changed by the 70s. My mom's brother was able to get a job at GM due solely to his father working there.

Marc Jeric| 12.16.08 @ 12:21PM

"Strong" unions have destroyed many industries - automobile, steel, electronics, textile, etc. - just look at your TV set, your computer, your shirts and socks and pyjamas and towels; our skyscrapers are built with Korean steel; in any parking lot 60% of cars are foreign-made. To escape from the union goons an industrialist has to outsource; but that is not possible with government services and education. Teacher unions have produced 3 generations of illiterates, full of self-esteem, who voted Abu Hussein from Kenya to power. Government employees issued visa extensions to the 9/11 terrorists 6 months after the 9/11. Talk about "government services"!

Stan Redmond| 12.16.08 @ 1:09PM

Unions simply control the cost of labor. And just like any other good or service, when the price is too high, people stop buying it. Unions have made the price of labor so high no one in business can, or wants to, afford it.

Derek P| 12.16.08 @ 1:12PM

Agreed. Until the teachers unions are eliminated true education reform is impossible in this country. Choice is the answer. I have infinitely more choice as to where I buy my toilet paper compared to where my kids would go to public (Gov't) schools. It's amazing to see in the very nice area where I live in suburban Indpls how many people move out when their kids get 2-3 into the public schools. They moved in because the area is nice when they either had no children or preschool childrem w/o regard to the school system. Once they get into the grade schools (which aren't THAT bad) they realize that in a few years precious Susie will soon be going to the Middle and High Schools which are dreadful.

L. Ross | 12.16.08 @ 2:13PM

I was a military transplant into the midwest. Spent 7 years in Indiana, living in Logansport, and 7 years in Michigan, right at the north end of Detroit.

Logansport was poor. I paid $10,000 for a house on about 1/4 acre in town. (this was 1987) Admittedly it was a real dump, I had to spend a month working on it to make it habitable. People didn't have much money. When a new couch arrived, the old couches made their way straight to the porch. The tall stuff was corn, the short stuff was soybeans, the smell was hogs.

I sold that house in 1992 for $18,000. About 230 miles away, in northern Detroit, I bought a not quite as run down fixer. Working class neighborhood. Small starter house, 1300 sq feet. No garage. $80,000. My neighbors were exactly the people described in the above article. I have never seen so many cigarette boats. One marina after another, one storage lot after another, filled with cigarette boats. Jet skis, travel trailers, motor homes, snow mobiles, cabins in the U.P. (upper peninsula of Michigan), everyone driving new cars, conspicious consumption on a level at least the equal to what I see at my new base here in the Los Angeles area.

I guess I'm trying to make a couple of points here. One is the rising tide of wages did not raise all the ships in the midwest. The fact is, that tide only extended about 60 miles from the epicenter of auto manufacturing. The second point is that when you hear about how good the UAW workers have had things, I'm hear to report the truth in that. I was consistently amazed at how much money there was in the Detroit area. They're not bad people, but they were living on a fat, fat hog for a long, long time. No wonder they can't quite comprehend that the good times have gone.

Paul C| 12.16.08 @ 2:29PM

l am a retiree of G.M. after 30 yrs, l pastor a small country church, vietnam vet, mar.41 yr, 4 sons 3 in the auto ind. 11 gr children and voted my last time republican this yr. l had no job til l was hired by G,M. making 2.35 an hr. my father was 42 yrs in the steel mill and work before the unions, was made to work 16 hrs a day at times with no benefits, and walked outside the gates if his job went down and back in off the clock, my uncles worked in the coal mines in W.V. watch the movie Matewan to see their conditions, we never owned a home in my life growing up, l own my small home and raised my family in it, the union gave me a chance to elevate my lower class life to middle class, and have a decent life, those that worked in the plants and bought all the toys were skilled workers after they went to school and learn their trade. we that were unskilled just lived from wk to wk and the overtime we had which was many times mandatory, the unions got us the pay raises after the auto indus. took off and the companies started making millions and had to pay extra to keep us in the plants 6 and 7 days a week, it was worth it to them then to pay the overtime because of the profit they were making, l have seen a man drop dead in the plant after saying he worked every day that yr, families were bust apart, alcohol was a problem, people were dying in car accident from working 16 hrs a day and they had to stop that and no one could work more than 12 hours a day, we say good time as all americans did then, but then the trade imbalances came in and we went down in production, l have always owned a american car and truck and have always had good luck with them and always will, but now we have to fight to keep our middle class status because we are hated now for wanting to be equal and have a chance in life, l am thankful for the life l have had and only hope my sons and their families can have the same chance and others but we are throwing them under the bus after we have rode the UAW for yrs to benefit this country, yes l know we have to give up some but to let it go busted is a disgrace, l see no future for our country or any working class person because of our stinking politics in this hour we live in.

Pat| 12.16.08 @ 2:53PM

Growing up in Detroit, everyone had a car story to tell, working in the plants, relatives working in the plants, belonging to the union and going out on strike. In the late 60's, you didn't have to know anyone to get a job in the auto plants and the ability to read and write was one of those "nice to have but not mandatory skills". You received 5 minutes of hands-on instruction toward your job for life, my job was loading crankshafts into a drilling machine - took 1 minute to master. Overtime was cheaper than hiring another 40 hour unit, but the carmakers would work heavy overtime and then go through temporary layoffs. Workers bought toys with the extra money and then sold off the toys during the periodic strikes and market downturns. Since education wasn't a requirement, the union workforce didn't understand business, if they could force some extra money or benefits from the Big 3, well and good. Detroiters lived in unspoken fear of killing the golden goose, the dwindling domestic market share of the Big 3 was no secret to anyone, but, then again, no one would give up anything to save the domestic automakers. UAW members would like to turn the clock back to 1965 and make things as they were then - but like all unrealistic dreams that will not and cannot happen.

Derek P| 12.16.08 @ 3:18PM

Excellent post Pat. The Golden Goose was killed, cleaned, roasted, and served years ago and it ain't coming back.

Paul C| 12.16.08 @ 4:00PM

l don't think l want to go that far Pat, the days of working on a assemly line with a trasmission going by you 2-3 a minute and the insanity of the hours doing the same thing over and over, and if you went to the restroom you had to have written permission and the foreman check the stalls w/o doors and they had better hear or smell something or out you went and 12 min breaks, always trying to figure out how to add more to your work to combine jobs to subtract men, you were lucky we didn't have the luxury of have jobs that could be learn in minute, but it did give us the initiative get off the line but it took sometimes yrs before that happen, but am still very thankful for my job and the life it gave my family, but did know it could not last, you just learn to live with the ups and downs of factory life, l knew men on the line that had college degrees that worked in the factory because of the pay and benefits, my sons are willing and glad to give up some pay and benefits just to keep working, too bad they don't make the decisions instead of the union officials that are never voted on.

Derek P| 12.16.08 @ 4:52PM

Another UAW nugget: I used to work at UPS and as such was a teamster. One day I made a delivery to the local GM plant of 1 small box that had been sent 2nd Day Air and came to my center by mistake. That is the only box that I had to deliver. When I walked into receiving w/ONE small box everyone was reading newspapers or eating. I apparently had the misfortune of catching them at lunch. When I asked if someone could simply sign for the package so I could leave one of them said something to the effect, "We don't work on lunch, come back at 1pm." Keep in mind this was around 12:15. So instead of simply just signing their name I had to friggin' wait 45 mins in the truck outside in 90 degree July heat until one of those lazy arses could lift a GD finger to sign his frickin' name. YES I was bitter then and by God I am still bitter now. As a worker who also loaded the trucks in the morning on a belt and busted my arse on a daily basis to work there and as a "fellow" union worked it completely pi$$ed me off.

Interested Conservative| 12.16.08 @ 10:00PM

Well - did he get the pole barn or not?

STEELWIMP| 12.17.08 @ 9:07PM

I recall here in Miami how the airline employees seemed almost to be royalty with the benefits, boats, vacation homes and free travel. And I recall how, as I see it, the unions' intransigence caused the downfall of the airlines like Eastern.

Ted| 12.18.08 @ 12:10AM

"This can't last -- can it?" I had the same thought when I started work at Ford in the mid eighties. The signs of high paid, unskilled work were everywhere. When Alan Mullaly came to Ford, he commented that Ford had been going out of business for over 20 years. People from outside of southeast Michigan could see this immediately, and could not convince people from southeast Michigan that things must change. The goose was dying a slow death.

George | 12.18.08 @ 10:38AM

How can less than 20% of the work force be a threat to anything.Look at all the people that are millionaires ,how can anyone possibly do enough work to earn that much in a year honestly?How all you critics of unions give the millionaires a free ride (20,000,000 to hit a baseball) and don't complain about them.Unions have paved the way for safer working conditions,more stability and let people live a better life.You union critics are driving this country to socialism.By the the way if the foreign cars are made so much cheaper how come the price of them doesn't reflect it.

Neill Clerk| 12.18.08 @ 12:00PM

I am shocked that people take the time to respond without getting their facts straight. The average auto worker makes about $60,000 a year. Now how does that buy a cottage, and jet skis? Maybe the man in the story inherited money? Maybe his wife had a trust fund? They weren't living that way off his wages, yet you keep making assumptions based on just that...........it's certainly not facts.

If you had did your homework you would know that Toyota workers and the average UAW worker are making about the same because Toyota gives monster bonuses of $6-8000 and yet I don't hear the outcry. Which leads one to believe the animosity is clearly at the UAW and you will nitpick your way around these false assumptions just so you can blow hard your way online for the demise of the UAW and hurt millions of people.

Where is the outcry against the banks who got a gift? The Big 2 (NOT the Big 3) are getting a bridge loan. So what? It's a loan, not a gift with millions in bonuses the banks and insurance industry got (and they still won't give out loans which is hurting the economy and the auto business and many more because people don't always have cash to pay for purchases. They are hurting people who pay their bills on time, but are getting credit freezes, accounts closed, etc. ).

It seems you are so focused on spilling vitriol against the UAW you can't see the forest for the trees.

Please get your facts straight and stop making it look like UAW workers are making six figures or more. And remember if you rally against them and lose them their jobs, your job may be next because up to 13 million people could be affected by this. It's a huge industry that sold cars and made plenty of profits until the banking industry completely messed up. And we have to see that the so-called answer of the government, was also the problem with so many regulations on the banks and savings and loans, and auto industry they created a huge problem. Please people...........do your homework before venting. It's not even worth reading stuff that needs to be constantly discounted. Go and read Wolf Blitzer's transcript from Sunday's show that will show you Corker lied. Don't follow along with people who are lying because they see a bigger agenda to make more money for themselves, and I am a registered Republican who knows only the truth sets us free and what I have seen here isn't the truth.

Dell| 1.9.09 @ 3:42PM

I enjoyed reading all the posts,but there are some that are just incorrect.I'm one of the lucking ones that have worked in the auto industry for 32 years at 4 different plants,but I have no pension no retirement just what I have saved in my own 401K so please don't think all us are living off the fat from the "BIG 3"and yes I'm a member of the UAW.