Word: uaw
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...Gettelfinger's, top lieutenants in recent years and handled several rounds of delicate negotiations with the Ford Motor Co. as the union tried to navigate the big downturn in the U.S. auto industry and the changes it forced in union contracts. Gettelfinger, 65, will relinquish the presidency at the UAW's next convention in June. (See the best business deals...
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...
...when we're talking about auto giants GM and Chrysler, both of which imploded after years of complicity and ineptitude by GM management and the United Auto Workers (UAW), it's more like disintegration. The UAW organized both GM and Chrysler in early 1937 - Henry Ford famously held out four more years. For decades, particularly under the leadership of Walter Reuther, who headed the union from 1946 until his death in 1970, it was able to win concessions from the automakers, bringing its members into the middle class. As long as demand for autos grew in the post...
...therein lies the problem. For years the UAW and the Big Three - now dwindled to the Detroit Three - operated an unholy alliance. Management would pile on wage hikes and perks, and in return (wink, wink) the union would keep the peace, i.e., rule out strikes, even though both sides must have realized that the amount being paid to workers was unsustainable, particularly if the industry hit any downdrafts - which happened with increasing frequency starting with the 1973 OPEC oil embargo. (See the 50 worst cars of all time...
That's harshly arbitrary, as is the fact that UAW jobs have been saved, at least for now, thanks to $60 billion of government money flowing into GM and Chrysler. Meanwhile, other companies have been allowed to croak. I can see how on macroeconomic grounds, it makes sense. Letting GM and Chrysler go under would have devastated the industrial Midwest and deprived millions of retirees of their postemployment health care. (See pictures of the global financial crisis...