By James B. Parks
Hundreds of thousands of workers in every industry gave up benefits and pay raises in the 1980s to help employers that were experiencing huge losses or even bankruptcy. But with the economy booming and record profits flowing, workers heading back to the bargaining table are finding that many companies are reneging on promises of sharing the wealth in more prosperous times. "When times are bad, we're told workers need to tighten their belts and give concessions to help businesses and employers," says Elaine Bernard, executive director of Harvard University's Trade Union Program. "When times are good, workers need to give concessions to employers to assist them in maintaining business competitiveness. So when do workers get rewarded for their contribution?"
Job security on the table
Workers heading to the bargaining table will be holding corporations responsible for maintaining good jobs as companies seek to increase their already bloated bottom lines by downsizing, laying off workers, moving work overseas and subcontracting to nonunion shops with lower wage and benefit standards.
When the UAW begins bargaining with the Big Three automakers later this year, the top issues on the table will be job security, education and organizing. The union intends to expand job protections won in the last contract and to address the threat of "modularization," which UAW President Stephen Yokich says is just another word for outsourcing.
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| | | Job security: At Boeing, where IAM's contract expires in September, the key bargaining issue will be the company's continued contracting-out. Boeing has announced plans to cut 48,000 jobs—20 percent of its workforce—by the end of 2000. |
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The UAW special bargaining convention set an agenda that calls for income protections such as no layoffs due to outsourcing, new technology or negotiated productivity improvements. The union also will seek to ensure that members have the first opportunity to fill openings due to attrition.
To ensure that retirements and attrition do not lead to downsizing, the UAW will demand that companies make the investments needed to modernize their facilities and expand their operations.
The UAW also is seeking to ensure that the union is part of management decisions concerning outsourcing and contracting out, so if work is outsourced, it is fully replaced by new or additional work and results in no net job loss.
The UAW also will seek to make education benefits more universal and to require employer neutrality in organizing drives.
At General Electric, where the number of Electronic Workers decreased from 60,000 in the 1970s to 20,000 today, CEO Jack Welch was rewarded for cutting costs at the expense of working families. In 1998, he received pay and benefits totaling $97 million. While Welch makes $50,000 an hour, the average GE worker did not make $50,000 in the entire year, says Electronic Workers President Ed Fire.
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| | | Bargaining power: Meeting in Detroit, UAW President Steven Yokich (right) and Teamsters President James P. Hoffa announced their unions would work together in future contract battles, with the Teamsters supporting the UAW in upcoming contract negotiations with the Big Three automakers. |
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"When it's all said and done, GE has no real loyalty to any country where it operates, any community built around GE plants or to the workers who have dedicated their adult lives to making quality products," Fire says. He heads a 14-union coordinated bargaining committee that will be negotiating with GE next year.
At Boeing, where IAM's contract expires Aug. 31, a key bargaining issue will be the company's continued contracting-out. Boeing has announced plans to cut 48,000 jobs—20 percent of its workforce—by the end of 2000.
"Corporate America always talks about teamwork—be productive, be competitive—and the American worker has excelled," says IAM President Thomas Buffenbarger. "But these same corporate leaders are the first to take their profits and run overseas or to low-wage nonunion shops here at home, choosing dirt-cheap wages over a skilled workforce."
Getting back what they gave up
At Kaiser Aluminum, Steelworkers agreed in 1985 to take a $4.50-an-hour cut in pay and health care benefits to save the company, with the understanding that Kaiser would restore the cutbacks when it returned to profitability.
After the company saw a year of record production and productivity in 1997, workers asked to be restored to wage and benefit parity with union steelworkers at other companies. Instead, Charles Hurwitz, a Texas financier who bought the company in 1988, demanded more cuts, refused to bargain on health and safety issues and sought unlimited rights to contract-out.
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| | | | "When do workers get rewarded for their contribution?" —Elaine Bernard, executive director, Harvard University's Trade Union Program | |
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When the workers struck last fall, Hurwitz locked them out and since has refused their Jan. 13 unconditional offer to return.
"We believed the company would reciprocate when times were good. But Hurwitz has chosen not to live up to the word of the folks who negotiated in the 1980s," says Sam Thomas, a member of USWA Local 5702 and a 25-year veteran at Kaiser's Gramercy, La., plant.
Hurwitz is reneging on his responsibility to stockholders as well, USWA charges. "In just three months, Kaiser spent more on its strike than the entire union contract proposal," says USWA Vice President Richard Davis.
Meanwhile, Machinists at Boeing may be facing increased health care premiums despite the success of a joint union-management committee that saved $40 million through aggressive health insurance management. "You save someone $40 million, and they turn around and bill you for it,"says Buffenbarger.
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From America@work, May 1999. |
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The answer: strong unions
The solution lies in a strong union movement that uses its collective strength to demand that companies act responsibly. In heavily unionized industries, such as steel, auto and aerospace, workers have strong leverage at the bargaining table.
"The issue is more than wages," Fire says. "There is no corporate responsibility beyond the bottom line."
"It's essential for workers to organize to press for their share of the economic prosperity," says Bernard. Only by working together, she says, can working men and women claim their fair share.
