Word: shaiken
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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King is viewed favorably both by UAW leadership and by outsiders. "Ron is very direct. Bob is a bit more cerebral," says Ford Motor Co. Chairman William Clay Ford Jr., who has dealt extensively with both union leaders. Labor experts including Harley Shaiken, a University of California-Berkeley labor-relations professor, say King, who completed an electrician's apprenticeship while working at Ford in the early 1970s and simultaneously finished a law degree at the University of Detroit, is the logical choice to succeed Gettlefinger...
...Meanwhile, many union members fear this is only the beginning of the cuts that will be imposed on retirees, who were once promised health-care benefits for life. "This is very, very painful for the union," says Harley Shaiken, a labor expert from the University of California, Berkeley. "It's a huge risk because the VEBA could run out of money if these companies don't do well," he said...
...understandable why the UAW isn't rushing to embrace a new agreement. According to Harley Shaiken, a labor expert at the University of California at Berkley and occasional consultant to the UAW, the union and its Canadian counterpart are grappling with demands for big cuts in their wages and benefits - on the order of 25% to 30% - by Chrysler and Fiat. The demanded rollbacks could reduce wages and benefits, presently pegged at $29 per hour, by $6 to $8 per hour. "There is no doubt these are very serious cuts and they're being made under very tight deadlines...
...Last week, Gettelfinger agreed to defer the automakers' scheduled payment to the voluntary employee benefit associations, or VEBAs, that is due next year. The VEBAs were created to help finance health care for retired workers. "This was a huge gamble for Gettelfinger," says Shaiken. Gettelfinger also suspended the controversial jobs bank, cutting off payments to some 3,600 workers idled by plant closings at the three companies. According to the local's website, the demand for board representation was linked to these concessions...
...further concessions are a "very sensitive issue for the union," says Shaiken. The battles over concessions have reopened old wounds in an industry long known for class warfare. Detroit's auto companies are organized around a strict hierarchy, with little of the "all for one, one for all" spirit that is more typical of start-up companies in Silicon Valley. Executives from Ford bluntly told union bargainers during one meeting last year that "shared sacrifice," a concept used during the industry's last crisis in the early 1980s, no longer applied because executives' high salaries were based on Ford...