UAW Chief Warns Workers of Tough Changes Ahead

By Dina ElBoghdady
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Ron Gettelfinger, head of the United Auto Workers, told his rank and file yesterday that the shrinking union faces the toughest challenges in its history and that members must adjust to the economic realities of the beleaguered U.S. auto industry and embrace innovative solutions.

The message, delivered in a wide-ranging speech at the opening of the union's four-day convention in Las Vegas, avoided bashing of General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co., which plan to close or downsize two dozen plants and cut 60,000 union jobs in the next few years as they try to regain their financial footing and turn a profit.

Instead, Gettelfinger recognized the plight of the two largest U.S. automakers in an increasingly competitive climate where their market share, with DaimlerChrysler AG included, has dropped 16 points, to 58 percent, over the past decade. The credit ratings for GM and Ford have been reduced to "junk" status.

"Like it or not, these challenges aren't the kind that can be ridden out," said Gettelfinger, 61, who is expected to win a second four-year term as the UAW's president Wednesday. "They demand new and farsighted solutions, and we must be an integral part of developing those solutions."

Kevin Boyle, a history professor at Ohio State University, said the more conciliatory tone is similar to the strategy the UAW embraced in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

"That's when the auto industry . . . went into its first major trauma and tried to strike a balance," Boyle said. "Now it seems an even deeper crisis than that because it's Ford and GM hemorrhaging jobs."

According to a transcript of the speech, Gettelfinger praised those who bargain in good faith with the UAW, including auto-parts suppliers Dana Corp. and Collins & Aikman Corp. He criticized multinational companies that he said have used the bankruptcy court as a weapon to destroy the union's collective bargaining agreements, most notably Delphi Corp.

Delphi, the nation's largest auto parts supplier, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October and recently asked a bankruptcy court judge for permission to toss out its contracts with the UAW and five other unions. Hearings on the issue were postponed until Aug. 11 after Delphi recently signaled it was making some progress on negotiations with the unions.

Last week, Delphi extended a buyout offer that had been made to 13,000 UAW workers to include all of Delphi's workers, a plan that was partly financed by GM. The automaker, which spun off Delphi in 1999, remains its largest customer and has a vested interest in Delphi's survival. The UAW has threatened to strike if the judge rules in Delphi's favor, which could cripple production lines at GM and possibly push the automaker into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Delphi won approval from the bankruptcy court to give $38 million in bonuses to its executives.

"We need to stop dead in their tracks those who would seek to void contracts with their workers while lining their pockets with everything of value and uncaringly destroying lives, hopes, dreams and communities," Gettelfinger said.

Thomas Ryan, a former Ford executive who often sat across the negotiating table from Gettelfinger, said he was not surprised at the reaction to Delphi's conduct.

"Ron's always been the kind of guy who wants to be part of the solution for as long as I've known him," Ryan said. "He's saying the union will be a full partner in that process, whatever the process takes. I think that's why he's attacking Delphi's approach of just trying to void that partnership."

Some of those who watched Gettelfinger's speech from the convention floor praised the message as on-point and invigorating. The only problem, they said, is the "what next?"

"The speech itself was excellent and certainly pointed to a lot of the problems facing the union," said Mike Parker, a member of UAW Local 1700 in Sterling Heights, Mich., and one of the 1,300 delegates at the convention. But, he said, "the convention is not addressing these problems."

Eldon Renaud, president of UAW Local 2164 in Bowling Green, Ky., said he was waiting for a strategy to emerge. He expects the union to announce today that it will set aside $60 million from its estimated $880 million strike fund to support organizing activities and help it respond more quickly to crises.

"We're watching everything going on with Delphi and GM," Renaud said. "But it's going to take more than what we can do at the bargaining table. There are failed [political] strategies that have failed to protect our jobs."

To that end, the UAW is pushing a proposal on Capitol Hill that would make it more difficult for a bankrupt firm to cancel its contracts. It also wants incentives granted to automakers and suppliers that build fuel-efficient cars in the United States.

Gettelfinger devoted much of his speech to berating the Bush administration for an agenda that attempts to dismantle the union's past gains on trade, health care, workers' rights and taxes. The union will put up a fight on all those fronts, he said.

Whatever strategy emerges, Gettelfinger said it will be done with fewer members because of the failure to expand the base and organize the U.S. plants of foreign-based automakers. The union, which had 1.5 million members at its peak in the 1970s, had nearly 600,000 active members last year.

"We're not going to surrender," he said. "The skeptics who say this is the twilight of the UAW, that we're toast, that our epitaph has already been written, don't know who we are and where we came from."