Word: auto
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...almost five years, members of the United Auto Workers have given up wage gains and made other sacrifices to help U.S. carmakers survive. Now, mindful of Detroit's record profits and the fat bonuses that auto executives have been paying themselves, U.A.W. leaders are entering the final lap of perhaps the most crucial contract talks in the union's 49-year history. If a new three-year agreement is not reached before the old one expires at midnight on Sept. 14, as many as 465,000 autoworkers may walk out in a strike that could deeply wound...
Adding to the tension and complexity of the negotiations are continuing fears of Japanese competition. The current U.S. auto boom would not be as robust without so-called voluntary restraints that limit the number of high-quality, attractively priced Japanese autos that Americans can buy. Industry leaders are intent on holding down labor costs to keep their cars competitive with the imports. Says GM Chairman Roger Smith: "Back in the '40s and '50s, the concerns were GM vs. Ford and vs. Chrysler. What happens here now affects GM vs. Toyota, vs. Volkswagen, and vs. everyone else." Ford Chairman...
...union is also taking its case to the public, to argue that it is fighting to save American jobs. Last week it launched a unique $2 million television-advertising campaign in 24 cities. One spot shows a Pontiac Sunbird convertible on a Brooklyn dock, where crates of auto parts from Korea, Japan, Brazil and Mexico are piled so high that they eventually hide the car. Says the narrator: "At the United Auto Workers we know America's future depends on American jobs...
Although the violence of car crashes is grimly depicted in Carlos Almaraz's expressionistic, fiery canvas Beach Crash, other artists are obsessed more with the auto's effect on collisions of male and female. E.E. Cummings describes the delicate and bittersweet technique of breaking in a new car as analogous to making love to a virgin. Chicago Artist Luis Jimenez's pastel study for his sculpture The American Dream shows a car, as Gerald Silk describes it in the museum publication, "ravishing a voluptuous nude female; breasts rhyme visually with hubcaps and headlights, hair with fenders, belly...
...school's students are as varied as its courses. Among them: a Roman Catholic priest from New Jersey, a psychologist from Texas and a high school instructor of auto mechanics from Hawaii. Judy Cullen, an animated grandmother and preschool teacher from Lopez Island, Wash., signed up for Day's course because she wants to help her husband build a 36-ft. sloop. Brockett Muir, who recently graduated from the University of Virginia, came to the school because he hopes to spend the next few years building boats professionally...