It’s an embarrassment for management and union leadership alike when the members reject the contract terms tentatively agreed upon. That was the position of Ford executives and the president of the United Auto Workers this month when enough locals elected not to ratify a contract that included more labor cuts on top of what they settled for earlier this year, with the threat of the collapse of the Big Three carmakers looming.
When the news hit, there was the expected speculation that the workers’ resistance to tighten their belts in these tough times will hurt Ford’s ability to recover and prosper. Days later, the company reported whopping third quarter profits.
The Associated Press reported that the company was trying to buy a yes vote before news of their financial success went public, offering members a $1,000 bonus for ratification, but the freezing of entry-level pay and limiting the ability to strike weren’t palatable options for members. As one local leader explained, workers wanted to see more cuts at the top, arguing that the dwindling car manufacturing workforce has already sacrificed enough.
“The Ford contract concessions were predicated on the assumption that Ford was in deep, deep trouble, which they weren’t,” said Stanley Aronowitz, a sociologist and labor expert based the City University of New York Graduate Center. “Luckily, there was a rank and file that would not stand for that.”
As much as this was workers calling the bluff of company bigwigs, it was also a sharp rebuke to UAW President Ron Gettelfinger, who along with settling for the punitive contract terms, stood by the heads of the Big Three automakers before Congress in the pleas for a bailout. His presence there, along with the union’s own interest, was in part to gloss over the image of incompetent industrialists looking for a government hand-out. Gettelfinger made the bail-out a pro-labor and populist cause, in the contrast to the bailout of the banks. In return for the image boost, Gettelfinger would help the bosses trim labor costs.
But there’s a greater lesson for the rest of us during this economic crisis. As UAW members fight against concessions and transit workers in Philadelphia strike against a company that won’t bargain in good faith, passersby tend to dismiss their actions by noting “I didn’t get a raise either,” or “Hey, it’s tough times.” It’s also the same time when the economic gurus get to say that we are on the rebound, enough to justify payouts to bank executives, but not enough to justify the trickle-down to workers.
For the rest of the country, most of whom are not in unions, putting pressure on their employer to raise wages and benefits is not easy. However, collectively, we can pressure more legislative reform in terms of living wage laws and mandates for health-care coverage. These aren’t new ideas, but in the model of the Ford workers, when we demand more from the ruling industrial class its claims of poverty should be met with skepticism.
