-
Midwest Unions’ Desperate Last Stand
June 18, 2012 | 23 comments
-
Compulsory ‘Free’ Speech
April 19, 2012 | 26 comments
-
Keystone and the Unions
February 7, 2012 | 34 comments
-
The Non-Union for Restaurant Workers
January 11, 2012 | 10 comments
-
Ambush Election Prevention
November 30, 2011 | 34 comments
The Nation's Pulse
Behind the UAW’s Aw Shucks Smile
Its tone may have changed, but its unionizing goals have not.
Bob King’s pants are on fire. Or they would be if the old saying (“liar liar…” ) were true. The United Auto Workers (UAW) President announced a change in strategy earlier in December, saying that his union would not target specific automakers in right to work states for unionization. Instead, King claims that the UAW will use a more diplomatic, less adversarial approach to organizing employees at these plants.
Conveniently, the shift comes less than a month before the end of a year in which King vowed to organize at least one non-union automaker. Gary Chaison, professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, told the Wall Street Journal that the change in tactics is really “a retreat.” He added, “I think they are in the embarrassing position of trying to announce an organizing drive that has yet to come to fruition.”
Indeed, the truth behind King’s announcement is that union leaders are beginning to realize that a head-on organizational drive will not work. The UAW has tried that time and again and workers have consistently rejected its efforts. The union has repeatedly failed to organize employees at factories owned by Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai Motor Co, Kia, Volkswagen, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz.
So what is the UAW to do? In a recent interview, King tries to portray himself as the nice guy saying, “We are not going to announce a target at all.… We are not going to create a fight.” Later in the interview King acknowledges the difficult spot he and his union find themselves in — and a way out of it. “It really is ultimately up to the companies,” he said.
Therein lies the rub. The union knows that workers do not want to join it, so they need to muscle their way in through the board room. In pursuing that strategy, the UAW remains as aggressive as ever, even as it claims to change its tone.
Early in 2011, the UAW unveiled its Principles for Fair Union Elections (see also “The UAW’s Last Gamble” in the March 21 National Review). Chief among the Principles is taking away the secret ballot from workers in unionization elections. The UAW would like to see these elections conducted via card-check, whereby a union organizer collects employee signatures on union cards out in the open. Card check opens the door for intimidation because both the union and employer know where each employee stands. Companies which seek to protect the privacy of workers incur the wrath of violating the UAW’s Principles. The punishment for not agreeing to the Principles is to attack the company’s reputation and thus increase public and financial pressure until the company bows to the union’s demands.
In January King said that if companies resist his union’s organizing efforts, the UAW “will launch a global campaign to brand that company a human rights violator.” Thus, for all of King’s current civil tone, the UAW remains committed to attack companies that resist its organizing efforts. The same day that King stated his illusory shift in strategy, he also announced that the UAW would target a foreign automaker, saying, “There are some real concerns we have with human rights and civil rights with Nissan.”
The announcement came a week after the union picketed about 75 dealerships of a non-union car company. What was so important the union sent out its members to picket so many dealerships? The UAW claims a South Korean subcontractor of a part supplier to the company — that is, someone who was not even directly employed by the auto manufacturer — was let go after filing a sexual harassment claim.
If the allegation is true, it is unfortunate, but the UAW seems to be really stretching here. Is the union really that concerned over a sexual harassment claim by someone half a world away who was not even employed by the company in question? Or is its goal to apply pressure to force the company to accede to its organizing efforts?
If the tactics of the UAW seem desperate, that is because they are. The union’s total membership has dropped to 377,000 down from a high of about 1.5 million in 1979. Since 2004, its membership has dropped precipitously by 42 percent. As King himself has bluntly stated, “If we don’t organize these transnationals, I don’t think there’s a long-term future for the UAW — I really don’t.”
Even with its membership plunging, the UAW remains a formidable force. It has over $1 billion in assets that it can bring to bear on an organizing campaign. Indeed, the UAW has been busy on that front. It reported spending $642,000 to target Toyota in 2010, including brochures, banners, and other campaign expenses.
Actions speak louder than words. For all of Bob King’s nice-guy talk, the UAW’s strategy of confrontation will continue, at the expense of both business and workers.
F. Vincent Vernuccio is Labor Policy Counsel at the Competitive Enterprise Institute
Letter to the Editor View all comments (21) | Leave a comment
More Articles by F. Vincent Vernuccio
More Articles From The Nation's Pulse
http://spectator.org/archives/2011/12/21/behind-the-uaws-aw-shucks-smil
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
Current Issue
- A President Loses His Power
- Self-Righteous Republic
- Inside the Gates of Eden
The Spectacle Blog
Former IRS Commissioner Refused to Say That Targeting Conservative Groups is Wrong
Benjamin Brophy | 2:27PM
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
ADVERTISEMENT
Timothy L. Pennell| 12.21.11 @ 6:39AM
"They have real concerns with Human Rights and Civil Rights" where Nissan is concerned. But, they want to take away the SECRET BALLOT. And, WHY do we Cherish the Secret Ballot when Voting for ANYTHING? Because, without it (Card Check) will "Open the door for INTIMIDATION because both the Union and the Employer know where each employee stands.
And WHY does there need to be Secret Ballots, where Unions are concerned? So the MOB doesn't throw a Molotov through the window of a NO voter. So Legs don't get broken. So people's KIDS aren't threatened.
Let's remember WHO the Leadership is. Ask Trumpka about the poor Bastard in West Virginia, who got a BULLET IN HIS HEAD, cause he dared go to work that day, to make money for his family, while Dick Trumpka was running the Coal Miners Union.
Where's Jimmy Hoffa? How many of these Unions are MOBBED UP? Easy. All of them. The Carpenters Unions. The Dock Workers. The Pipe Fitters. The Teamsters. All of them.
Is that where anybody wants to work? Someplace run by the MOB? Who wants that over their head? Am I safe, if I speak out? Is my Wife safe? Are my KIDS safe?
This is the Democrat Party. It's unbelievable. I see NO DIFFERENCE in this Political Party, with THIS Leader, from the Nazi Party circa 1930. NONE. Using Marx's teachings, combined with Alinsky's Methods, of Dividing the People by Class and Wealth, Identifying the Enemy (The RICH) and Single him out for Derision, and combining this with Goebbels' BIG LIE, and a Complacent, Complicit State Run Media, they go about TRANSFORMING AMERICA in to the next Third World Banana Republic, led by a Brown Skinned Presidente for Life.
NEVER AGAIN!
SC Mike| 12.21.11 @ 6:59AM
Wow, nice rant, well expressed!
I should note that your opinion of today's union movement is higher than mine.
Jan| 12.21.11 @ 3:52PM
Let's also take a look at what the nice UAW ( and the demorat party) has done for Detroit, it ain't pretty.
Mike D.| 12.21.11 @ 9:22PM
Yes sir, have the UAW organize an auto plant near you and you can Detroitize your community. I know, I was born and raised there and later fled from there.
SC Mike| 12.21.11 @ 6:56AM
Over the past few months I’ve seen mention of the UAW’s notion that it could most easily unionize Volkswagen because it’s a union shop in the Vaterland with union membership on the board. The theme was that it would be a straightforward matter for the boys back home to push the company’s US operations to allow the UAW in.
VW is of course trying to increase its market share and appears to be doing okay with that by de-contenting the Jetta and Passat models, now offering them at truly competitive prices. I don’t see how the UAW’s fondness for work rules and seeking arbitration for every little change around a plant work in their favor in an environment where efficiency is the key.
Sure a company determines to some extent whether the UAW can squeeze in, but the workers have a big say. I’ll wager a month’s pay that the BMW plant here in the Palmetto State will not unionize this century, card check or no.
Thank you for the informative column.
Bob K.| 12.21.11 @ 8:55AM
This is surprising?
Of course Unions are going to keep running organization campaigns! Of course their leadership is going to keep trying to influence the political class into giving Unions laws that will make it easier!
And that's because it is still legal for Unions to organize workers! And so they are going to keep trying to do it. It's been legal in the Private Sector for over 100 years! That should be obvious!
It is up to the voters to elect Pols who will not work in the Unions interests
As pointed out in the article, Unions still have to sell it to the workers they want to organize. So far they are having problems doing it. Their decreasing membership in the private sector is evidence of that.
The real problems we have with Unions are in the Public Sector.
dcode| 12.21.11 @ 9:02AM
SC Mike, well said. The new VW plant in Chattanooga, TN has been the subject of similar, breathless press stories about how receptive the locals are to unions, and of course, the couple of local welfare-addicted mafiosi union hall stooges still left in the South chimed in when the plant began, vowing to make these Southern dufuses understand the value of unionizing. Funny, though, the dumbass Southerners just aren't signing up for the scam. Wonder why? Maybe they can look just a few hundred miles north and see what God-awful, rusted-out, depressed conditions persist and metastasize in union-shop states (IL, MI, the entire Northeast)? Maybe these dullard rednecks actually know better what's in their own interest than the bloated, government-sponsored, multi-million dollar pensioned union suits from Chicago and Detroit. Having moved from IL to TN two years ago, I can say with certainty: the people are better and wiser here; the economic climate is better, the food is better, the cost of living is better, the weather is better, the taxes are fewer, and the opportunities are greater for everyone--and most locals don't want to import any of the festering cultural or economic poison and garbage from union-land.
So good luck UAW. You'll be lucky if you head back north without 00 buckshot stinging your a**es.
ggoblue| 12.21.11 @ 9:13AM
they [uaw leaders] are democrats first, and union men second. and they think its the same thing.
when nafta passed, NOT A PEEP...dems first union men second...good bye to MILLIONS OF USA jobs
when CAFE standards were raised, NOT A PEEP...dems first, union men second...and so dems are allowed to outlaw our very product line...several times over...at a cost of billions in re-tooling each time.
when the 2 senators from michigan cast the deciding votes to kill ANWAR...NOT A PEEP...dems first and union men second...goodbye to millions of USA jobs and the fuel for the trucks and suv's which the buying public want.
when john dingell is replaced by henry waxman as head of the energy committee [ignoring his seniority but installing a auto hater] NOT A PEEP...good little democrats first, union men second...
when waxman drives GM into the ground within 10 months, NOT A PEEP! good little democrats first and union men second...
when the white house breaks our contract and closes 16 more plants than even rick wagonner wanted to...NOT A PEEP! good little democrats first and union men second...[but scott walker is a demon for breaking the afsme contract in wisconsin lmao]
stopping the keystone pipeline? NOT A PEEP!
a new draconian round of CAFE limits which will outlaw every gas fueled auto/truck in america within the next 10 years? NOT A PEEP OUT OF THE UAW OR THE TEAMSTERS!!!!
as a uaw and aflcio member i could go on and on and on...THEY ARE DEMOCRATS FIRST AND UNION MEN SECOND!
HOW? YOU MAY ASK, DO THEY LOOK IN THE MIRROR EVERY MORNING???
BECAUSE THEY THINK ITS THE SAME THING!
my friends, the entire union vote [of working folks, not public employees] is there for the taking...we simply must drive the wedge between workers and enviro-nazis...the uaw [and building trades, and teamster] leadership is insulated and out of touch with the membership.
do not believe for one second that real working people are going to vote twice for barak hussein obama, HIS NAME IS DIRT ON THE SHOP FLOOR. I am there, and we conservatives DOMINATE political discussion on the floor.
signed ggoblue, local 160, UAW
[any conservative writer who really wants to know what the working man mindset is should get a hold of me] its ggoblue at the ya and the hoo.
dcode| 12.21.11 @ 10:01AM
Ok ggoblue, I have to ask then, why do the union rank & file continue to elect the kinds of Demon-party-first leaders that we see, and why do you tolerate huge %ages of your paychecks being funneled, without your consent, directly to Il Duce Nero's re-election? Are you powerless, or just outnumbered? My experience dealing with closed-shop (and militantly close-minded) unionistas in IL was that the rank & file may be unhappy, may be able to see the writing on the wall that their leaders don't give a sh*t about them and all of their jobs are about to vanish to the SE US, TX, or Mexico, but when it comes to the votes, they do what their leadership tells them to do, period. Start bucking that trend and maybe you'll stop the bleeding. As it stands, most conservatives aren't going to treat you any differently than the true welfare queens in the public employee unions--because you all vote the same, and all your $ goes to the same place.
ggoblue| 12.21.11 @ 1:30PM
if you think we all vote the same...well you just dont know what you are talking about. 40% of the membership votes republican every year and next year it will be more, unless you drive them away.
a majority of the membership voted for ronald reagan. but haters like you are always there to drive them back.
as for the dues, i have no control over that. i counter it by donating my monies to many conservative causes and candidates...including this site.
did you know that there isnt even a direct election for guys like bob king? there is no way for us to get rid of him. none.
gearjammer| 12.21.11 @ 12:55PM
Don't buy union stuff. Cancel or trim cable and other such bills, Settle for a simple cell phone fot a while. Don't go to movies, buy mags and lib books, etc. etc. Send simple post cards to CEO's and union bosses explaining the actions taken. This is the battlefield of the next civil war. If 20 million homes simply did not watch the suoer bowl, it'd be a shot heard round the world. By the way do not expect your conservative hero Limbaugh to do any of the above-too busy having more fun than a human being can have that self absorbed fool. And, you wonder why we keep getting our asses kicked. All talk-no action.
cicero| 12.21.11 @ 1:18PM
First, a little disclaimer: My father fought in the Battle of the Overpass, and I was a Uaw member while working my way through college, in the era before student loans - when you could still do that, as the tuition was affordable, even for us making $3.74 per hour. The need for the factory class to organize so as to give them rights in the work place was appparent then. The unions were so successful, that they got legislation passed that made then obsolete. We now, as a direct result of trade union effort, have wage, safety, and anti-discrimination laws, among others. As a result, there is little need for labor unions. The only real function not already fixed in state and federal laws are the grievance procedures. Even those can be easily handled by the various workplace rules. As a result, the day of the industrial labor union is coming to a close. The real problem for the ountry is the unionization of government workers. But that is for another day.
The UAW is sitting on hoards of money from the VEBAs that they negotiated prior to the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies. They are now in a position where they will responsible for their members' and retirees' health care, while the auto companies are off the hook. Their only remaining function will be a benefits reps. Not enough for Solidarity House to keep going.
All of the little shops - auto suppliers - that they represented are out of business, with their functions consolidated in the likes of Magna. Johnson Controls, Tower, etc. We are entering into an era of labor change in the private sector. Demonizing the industrial unions will not be helpful. They will phase out as the workers realize they (unions) are no longer necessary. They will return when the balance between labor and capital is again disrupted, and becomes unfair.
No such balance exists in the government employment sphere. The taxpayers need to unite and save themselves there.
ggoblue| 12.21.11 @ 1:32PM
there is a lot of truth right here folks ^^^^^
we need to get the govt out of the workplace [too much osha and epa] and we need to break the public employee monopoly.
dcode| 12.21.11 @ 2:14PM
I agree w most of what Cicero says, above, but to ggoblue's earlier characterization of me as a "hater" who will drive union folk back to voting for Il Duce Nero...sorry, they're already there, and with Obama having won IL and MI in 2008 by 60-40, I'm not buying your "40%" number. I can't tell you how many pickup trucks I saw in the upper Midwest with "NRA" and "Kerry/Edwards" or "Obama/Biden" bumper stickers, one right next to the other. This is aggressive cognitive dissonance--supporting one is utterly inconsistent with supporting the other. Which I guess explains why you can pretend to be a conservative, yet insult those who mock closed shops as violently, inexorably anti-democratic and job-killing. Empirically, this is so. Empirically, the productive states of this country reject unionism. And if you're serious about getting the feds out of the workplace, then I assume you'd be ok with the repeal of Davis-Bacon and the elimination of the NLRB, right? I doubt it. I'd be ok with giving the choice to each state. Let the welfare addicts rot in their own feces in IL, MI, CA, NY, etc. while the rest of the country moves on and maybe saves a few American jobs from Mexico and China. Meanwhile, you'll keep voting en masse for more federal regulation, pretending you're conservative because of your NRA bumper sticker. Good luck--just stay out of my state.
ggoblue| 12.22.11 @ 9:02PM
i'm totally ok with right to work...the union needs to stand on its own merits and right to work would force them to represent the workers best interests...instead of the interests of the democratic party.
W| 12.21.11 @ 4:47PM
The United Auto Workers Union (UAW) has been the most efficient, well run, democratic, and well-run labor union in the USA. There is an excellent history of it "The Brothers Reuther" by Victory Retuther. This change in strategey, though, just means what all unions know, that it is difficult today to convince workers to vote for a union IF the employer treats the employees fairly. An employer can easily beat a union organizing campaign if the workers do not have any major complaints because then the question is "Why have a Union?"
There is an old saying that the best organizer for a union is a bad employer.
markenoff| 12.23.11 @ 2:38AM
"The United Auto Workers Union (UAW) has been the most efficient, well run, democratic, and well-run labor union in the USA."
A litte redundancy there. Admittedly, the UAW has never been puy under federal supervision. However, look at who they are compared to: Teamsters, UMW, USW, NEA etc. It's like being called the most intelligent monkey. You're still a monkey.
W| 12.23.11 @ 8:00AM
No, Markenoff, I have to disagree. I have dealt with unions and base my opinion on my experience plus research. Also,most employers will tell you they would rather deal with a union instead of the federal government over employment issues which the government has taken over by legislation.
shipley130| 12.21.11 @ 5:55PM
They will try to subvert state law in a friendly manner. It's lipstick on a pig time, once again.
bellicus_pium| 12.22.11 @ 4:31AM
What does the UAW REALLY want?
To destroy the non-union plants creating jobs with sustainability.
The old UAW model would cost close to $80 per hour in total benefits, whereas the non-union model of present-day plants costs less than $50 per hour. This figure is the TOTAL wage and benefits.
Clearly, the old UAW model did not work.
Is this the definition of insanity or what?!?!?!?!
markenoff| 12.23.11 @ 2:34AM
Those poor, ignorant, exploited US employees of Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai Motor Co, Kia, Volkswagen, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz. Don't they understand that they can never realize their full potential without the benevolent aid of the UAW? They are being exploited and don't even know it! Workers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!
(And we need your dues and contributions to finance our political influence and to bail out the pension funds of the "Big Three" that we have driven into the ground. Oh, and to pay the six figure salaries of our officers.)