Word: reuther
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Crusades in Conflict. For both sides, the costly contest was almost a jihad, or holy war. To Leonard Woodcock, the quiet, scholarly leader who took over as president of the U.A.W. last May after Walter Reuther died in an airplane crash, the strike was a call to arms for a younger generation of workers who know nothing of the union battles of the '30s. In meeting after meeting, he has told the men to dig in for a long, bitter siege, warning that they will have to go without strike pay after the union's $120 million...
...sides are farther apart than the figures indicate, because of a highly ambiguous clause in an agreement that Reuther negotiated to end the 66-day strike against Ford in 1967. The resulting conflict is an object lesson of the perils of postponing trouble. In the 1967 contract, the union accepted a ceiling on cost-of-living increases in return for an agreement that compensation for inflation above that ceiling "shall be available" in 1970. The difference now amounts to 26? an hour, which the union considers to be money already owed its members above and beyond any new settlement...
Despite the smoldering animosities on both sides, the negotiations so far have proceeded almost as though the U.A.W. and the automen had taken George Meany's proposition to heart. Leonard Woodcock's low-key style is in sharp contrast to Reuther's combativeness. The companies, too, have been less belligerent than Roche's tough words would indicate. At the Norwood, Ohio, Chevrolet assembly plant, workers staged a nine-day go-slow without audible protest from General Motors. Last week a jurisdictional strike halted work at the Lordstown plant, the home of G.M.'s subcompact...
...increase, though, would barely restore the purchasing power that union men had a year ago. Beyond that, Woodcock still wants an additional 26? an hour that U.A.W. men already would have got if Reuther had not agreed in 1967 to put a limit of 8? an hour on annual cost-of-living increases. The companies have promised to pay the 26?, but contend that it should be counted as part of a new contract package; Woodcock insists that it be granted separately and that all limits on cost-of-living raises be removed in the new pacts. The 26?, added...
...from an unruly rank and file to hold out for a fat settlement. Discussing the problem of absenteeism, he once admitted that the union's younger members "just do not respond to the threat of discipline." Every move he makes will be compared with what U.A.W. members think Reuther would have done, and Reuther had a reputation for squeezing out the last possible penny in bargaining. Woodcock's chief bargaining adversary, G.M. Vice President Earl R. Bramblett, also 59, has worked for the company for 41 years but took over the role as principal negotiator only three months...