Buzz Off Concessions

Again, we are able to provide you with a document that the mass media does not have the space to reproduce. The CAW statement and resolution make an interesting read.

What is also interesting to read is Buzz Hargrove's statement in the Star.

• "Hargrove also said "we will not blindly follow this policy but we will not stand idly by and watch the wages, benefits and pensions of our members in this important sector rolled back by auto parts companies."
  

Does he really mean it or not? Was this big hoopla just to please the rank and file with a wink-wink, nod-nod to management?

I wonder what would happen if the CAW allowed their members to have a free vote on this issue. One friend of mine who is a CAW member told me that he would have cut his pay by a few dollars per hour to save jobs at his auto plant.

Remember my BLOG on September 28 "AUTO JOBS SAVED!" that dealt with the VW plant in Germany and how that plant was saved for workers by wage concessions. Could that ever happen here?

Emergency No-Concessions Statement & Resolution
CAW Auto Parts Conference

St. Thomas, Ont.
November 11, 2005

The North American auto industry is heading into a major crisis. Autoworkers did not cause this crisis. We are more productive than ever. We perform higher-quality work than ever. And our compensation (wages, pensions, and benefits) has grown more slowly than our productivity; so our share of the value-added produced in the industry has declined over time.

The true causes of the crisis are clear. Globalization is a one-way street for North American autoworkers. Offshore imports take up almost one of every four vehicles sold in North America. But North American plants (whether Big Three or transplants) can sell virtually nothing to offshore markets. The resulting one-way flow of imports – over 4 million vehicles last year – is destroying thousands of jobs in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico, and destroying the market share and financial foundation of North American-based automakers.

The North American market share of domestic producers has declined by almost 20 percentage points since 1996. Every lost percentage point equals one more assembly plant that must be closed – along with all the parts plants that used to supply that plant. As long as that market shrinkage continues, the fundamental economic consequences are inevitable: lost jobs, plant closures, huge financial losses, and eventually bankruptcies. Workers didn’t create this problem, and workers can’t hope to solve it through their bargaining.

As usual, however, major corporate and media figures are blaming workers and their unions for this crisis. They don’t let the economic facts get in their way. They sense a moment of opportunity to attack workers and their unions, and turn back the generations of gradual economic progress that explain why an auto job is still a “good” job. The demand for back-breaking concessions at Delphi is just the beginning. If Delphi attains those concessions (either through bargaining or court order), it will lead to an incredible wave of attacks on unionized auto parts plants on both sides of the border – and that conflict will inevitably spill over into Big Three facilities, as well.

U.S. judges are also joining this anti-union crusade. Auto industry employers in the U.S. have become much more aggressive in using bankruptcy law provisions to dismantle collective agreements and attack unions. Several firms have strategically used Chapter 11 protections, supported by anti-union judges, to unilaterally escape their obligations to their workers – including the irresponsible dumping of pension obligations onto a U.S. guarantee system that has been overwhelmed by this deliberate bankruptcy “planning” (which is quite different from “true” bankruptcies). Even in Canada, where our bankruptcy laws do not grant as much power to employers, union members at several firms have been hurt by bankruptcy proceedings. Delphi’s aggressive attack will only make things worse. Part of labour’s response to the Delphi situation must be to fight for fairer bankruptcy laws that preserve the integrity of collective agreements.

The CAW has worked diligently and responsibly to build a vibrant, successful auto industry in Canada. Our plants are second to none in quality and productivity. We’ve participated actively in initiatives (like the Canadian Automotive Partnership Council, CAPC) to address problems and update our auto policies. In our bargaining (in both assembly and parts) we emphasize technology, productivity, and innovation – the keys to our long-run economic success – and our wages and benefits are reasonable given our productivity.

The auto industry is Canada’s most important high-technology industry, our biggest exporter, and the ultimate source of hundreds of thousands of jobs. Auto industry stakeholders have agreed through CAPC to ambitious long-run goals for building this industry (including an official target to expand Canadian parts production – not watch it wither away due to globalization). And all the experts (including the new Canadian Automotive Human Resources sector council) agree that we can build a sustainable industry only by investing in the people who make this industry work – not by attacking them and taking away their hard-earned compensation.

We will move mountains to protect and promote the auto industry. But we will not cut our wages, pensions, and benefits. That will never save our industry: at absolute most, it slightly defers the inevitable. And it would discredit the labour movement that has worked for generations to give working people a fair share of the wealth they produce.

The future shape of Canada’s auto industry will be determined by how we collectively respond to the coming crisis. The CAW will do everything it can to attract new auto investment and preserve good-quality auto jobs in this country. But we will not impoverish our members, or future generations of autoworkers, by fruitlessly trying to “buy” our own jobs. That would be self-defeating. A sustainable auto industry must be built on solid foundations: quality, productivity, innovation, respect for contracts, and fair trade.

Therefore, delegates to the CAW’s special Auto Parts Conference hereby endorse the following emergency resolution:

CAW EMERGENCY NO-CONCESSIONS RESOLUTION

1. The CAW and its local unions will not accept concessions in wages, pensions, or benefits in its auto assembly or auto parts contracts.

2. The CAW and its local unions will not open its collective agreements before expiration because employers want to bargain concessions.

3. The CAW and its local unions will remain open and flexible to work with employers and governments to enhance the viability of Canadian auto plants by investing in new technologies or products, enhancing productivity, maximizing utilization, and improving work practices.

4. The CAW will mobilize all of the resources of the national union to support local unions who are resisting employer demands for concessions, and will oppose concessions using every non-violent option available to us (up to and including demonstrations, occupations, plant shut-downs, and refusing to handle “hot” auto parts).

5. The CAW will step up its fight for a fair auto trade policy to open opportunities for North American auto exports, and control the one-way flow of imports that is the ultimate source of our industry’s crisis.

6. The CAW will continue to fight for fair laws to ensure that collective agreements in Canada cannot be unilaterally rewritten under bankruptcy protection proceedings, and to ensure that pensions and other post-retirement benefits are secured by a combination of private and public commitments.

CAW’s Action Plan to Fight Auto Parts Concessions

1. Resist concessions at all costs: We will demonstrate with actions, when words are not enough, that auto parts companies cannot solve their problems on the backs of their workers through concessions in wages, pensions, and benefits. If this requires demonstrations, plant occupations, strikes, or any other non-violent action by CAW members and their community allies, then the CAW will be ready. Parts makers who attempt to solve their problems by forcibly extracting concessions from their workers, will find their ability to effectively do business in Canada severely constrained.

2. Early warning system: If a CAW-represented plant or employer faces big financial challenges, CAW local and national representatives will meet quickly with company officials to examine the financial and operational facts of the situation and develop an action plan. Financial losses, even severe ones, will never justify concessions. But the CAW will seriously undertake to examine the challenges of distressed companies and consider sustainable workplace changes (such as technology, innovation, productivity measures, and work practices) that could contribute to a genuine solution.

3. Draw government into the solution: In some cases, troubled facilities or companies may qualify for assistance from various government investment or support programs (especially when substantial new investments in technology, skills, or innovation could lay the foundation for a more stable future). The CAW will work closely with government officials where appropriate to stabilize and revitalize troubled facilities.

4. An injury to one is an injury to all: In cases when an automotive supplier transfers production from CAW members who are resisting concessions to non-union or foreign plants, CAW members at auto assembly plants will refuse to handle those re-sourced components.

5. Fighting for fair trade: Anything we do to strengthen our auto plants will be only a temporary “band-aid,” so long as North American governments continue to roll out the red carpet for auto imports – with no requirement that they take back North American-made products in return. Our fight against concessions goes arm-in-arm with our fight to open foreign markets to our products, our fight to stop the Canada-Korea free trade deal, and our fight to require all automakers to create jobs in Canada as a condition of their access to our market.

6. Saving our pensions: Plant closures or bankruptcies may jeopardize the future pension or post-retirement health benefits of CAW members. The CAW will enlist its Union in Politics Committees and other allies to campaign forcefully to protect the pensions and retirement benefits of CAW members affected by the fight against concessions, and to step up the fight for stronger policies to protect pensions.

7. Expanding union protection: In non-union plants, workers have little opportunity to fight unilateral concessions – the employer simply dictates them. And by attempting to leap-frog below even non-union wage levels (at $9 per hour wages, the Delphi cuts would push non-union companies to impose wage concessions), Delphi is telling all autoworkers in North America – not just union members – that their wages are too high. If unorganized auto parts workers have any hopes of resisting that race to the bottom, they have to join the union, and the CAW will step up its efforts to help them do so.