Word: reuthers
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...first time in his twelve years as president of the United Auto Workers, Walter Reuther took a licking. With auto-industry contracts due to expire this week, Reuther last week jettisoned his key demand-for profit sharing. He issued a face-saving statement that profit sharing "was never a demand, but a mechanism for giving the stockholders, consumers, workers and managers their just equities.'' This fooled no one. Behind closed doors Reuther himself had told unionists that they must cut their demands, take "a more realistic" approach to bargaining. He decided to drive for a 10? hourly wage...
Reason for the softening of demands was that the automakers had rallied as never before to put up a united front against the U.A.W. Furthermore, Reuther himself conceded that to strike now "would be insane" because dealers have a two-month backlog of unsold new cars. Instead, Reuther wanted to stretch out the contracts week by week, hoping to stall until the 1959 models start to roll out in September, when a strike threat might be heard more clearly...
Strategy & Strikes. The ill wind has blown some good for the automakers. In labor relations, they have fewer problems than they had expected this year. At the start of negotiations for a new contract last month, Walter Reuther's United Auto Workers asked for a 35?-45?-an-hour wage package and tried a familiar whipsaw strategy to get it. The U.A.W. fired off contract termination notices to Ford and Chrysler but not to G.M., obviously hoped to force the two smaller companies to settle, then use the settlements to pressure G.M. into line. But when the industry formed...
...other companies and prevent whipsawing, G.M. pulled a surprise. It canceled its contract as of May 29. The move astounded and infuriated the U.A.W., which is now faced with an industry-wide shutdown if it strikes one of the companies, since all can refuse to operate without contracts. Roared Reuther: "They can't make us strike. We are not going to accommodate the industry by striking to deplete their inventories. I can assure you they are not going to get away with it." But chances are that the auto industry can get what it wants, thanks to the sales...
U.A.W. SALARY CUTS are on way to offset current $200,000 monthly deficit caused by auto layoffs. Salaries of President Walter Reuther ($22,000) and 24 other executives will be slashed 10% ; some 100 staffers will be laid off. Big worry: U.A.W. now has $24 million in strike fund, far short of $50 million goal set for early June, when auto contracts will have expired...