[getsmart-l] Organized labour is on its knees and Wall Street LOVES it!

[23skidoo]

This statement excerpted from the article which follows below sums up the situation we face in our workplaces now daily. 
Our plight is rather grim with the unions fast asleep or more likely in the pockets of those whom they are supposed to be 
negotiating with on behalf of organized labour and the growing multitudes of unorganized labour. There has been virtually
little to no organizing of those other non-unionized wage slaves. And they like all of us need help to get back to a secure 
North American life - work balance formerly known as the 'American Dream'
In fact China and India now set the labour standards on this planet and the corporations are enjoying the resultant gigantic profits. 
Imagine the looks on the boss's face when China produces a car forsale on our car lots with a $9,000 pricetag, while India whips its labourers 
to make a car for a mere and magically unbelievable $3,000!?!
These ruthless transnationalist corporate giants are now melting down the existing hard earned labour rights and privileges of yesteryear- gained 
by real labour activists who of course brought you the weekend, while in India we have cases of people dying on weaving looms because they can't 
afford to take breaks to eat and of course China has 18 people dying daily in illegal coal mines because safety is not a part of their labour rights agenda.
Amazingly we in the 'free'' West seem to have no problem trading with these countries/slave states. Today its these poor souls who's swet and toil stock 
the shelves of our big box stores and local 'Try N' Save Marts.' Soon it will be us as well and don't expect them to flinch when we join them in the mines and 
on the assembly lines.
Oh and if you think I jest here..? 
Next time you go to Canadian Tire - just try n buy something made in Canada. They may be falsely advertising themslelves as 'Canadian'
when in fact they might more appropriately now be calling themselves China Tire.
We'd better turnoff them television sets and start paying attention to whats really going on all around us - things other than infotainment 
and well placed purposeful distractions because "workers are like owners of a family car whose wheels fell off long ago."

Film at 11:00
***

Atlantic Free Press - Oct 22, 2007 
http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2671&Itemid=81 


UAW Sellout at GM and Chrysler     


by Stephen Lendman 


The September and October United Auto Workers (UAW) GM and Chrysler 
agreements are just the latest examples of union leadership surrender 
and betrayal. It's an ominous sign of labor's plight and clear 
indication of what's ahead - more for business, less for workers, and no 
relief in sight with union bosses out for themselves and more allied 
with business and imperial interests than their own rank and file. 


American civilization and labor historian Paul Buhle sees organized 
labor today in a state of collapse, and labor author Robert Fitch says 
"American workers are like owners of a family car whose wheels fell off 
long ago. Each family member (must rely) on their own two feet; they 
scarcely remember what it was like being able to ride together." Who can 
dispute it with union membership down from its post-war 1950s high of 
34.7% to the lowest private sector level in over 100 years at 7.4% 
today. In addition, inflation-adjusted wages are stagnant or falling, 
benefits are being slashed, and Fitch says conditions in the garment and 
meatpacking industries are as bad today as the ones muckrakers like 
Upton Sinclair exposed a century ago in his book "The Jungle." 


He blames it on union corruption at the top in different forms - leaders 
on the take, siding with business, getting big salaries and fancy perks 
and more concerned with their own welfare than the interests of their 
members. Nothing on the horizon points to change with corrupted UAW 
leaders Exhibit A. 


Back in June, the UAW reached an agreement with Delphi Corporation that 
signaled what would follow with the auto companies. Following months of 
negotiating, it allowed the company to impose pay cuts up to 50%, lay 
off thousands, and slash health and retirement benefits. It was a win 
for company and a crushing defeat for Delphi workers. 


Then in July, UAW and the United Steelworkers reached an agreement with 
auto supplier Dana Corporation that allows the unions to take over 
managing worker long-term disability and retiree healthcare coverage. 
The deal is projected to save Dana over $100 million a year, eliminate 
$30 - $40 billion in long-term company liabilities, and it gives UAW 
leadership another chance for what it wanted for years - a VEBA 
(voluntary employee beneficiary association) agreement putting the union 
in the healthcare business for the big profit potential it represents. 
More on that below. 


In the past, VEBAs proved costly to UAW workers. The union set one up 
with Detroit Diesel in 1993 that cost company retirees dearly when funds 
in it ran out in 2004. It happened again to Caterpillar retirees in 2005 
who'll see their out-of-pocket costs triple by 2010, and the sky's the 
limit after that. As for Dana Corporation, it got more in the deal as 
well - the right to hire new workers at half the wages of current ones 
so older employees can be phased out and replaced with low-cost new 
ones. 


The same UAW - company pattern is now in play at GM, Chrysler and Ford. 
GM workers struck September 24 and returned to work two days later after 
union negotiators agreed to huge concessions the company demanded and 
got without breaking a sweat. Workers accepted the proposal by a nearly 
two to one margin, but in doing it signed away their futures with a deal 
they'll live to regret. They traded shaky job security today for big 
contractual givebacks later. The pact affects 73,000 hourly workers at 
GM's 82 US facilities, and key to it is a VEBA agreement for the UAW 
henceforth to manage GM's 400,000 retirees' health benefits while 
letting the company off the hook for what it's been providing since 
1964. The GM VEBA amounts to a multi-billion dollar trust fund that will 
transform the union into a major health care provider, and allow it to 
reap huge profits by cutting its own members' benefits. 


For its part, GM is only obligated to contribute $35 billion of the $55 
billion it owes retirees. But the deal is even sweeter than that. Health 
care costs are soaring, and the company's have risen by nearly half 
since 2003. It's clear what's ahead. The VEBA employee experience at 
Detroit Diesel and Caterpillar is coming to GM. When funds in it run 
out, the UAW will cut benefits and hike premiums and co-pays so union 
profits aren't affected. The agreement also lets GM divert pension fund 
money to the VEBA trust and allows for worker cost of living increases 
to go instead toward retiree health benefit expenses making the deal 
even worse. 


Other terms agreed to in the contract include a two-tiered wage and 
benefit package. Under it, new skilled assembly-line workers will get 
$26 to $32 in hourly wages but less in benefits than current ones for a 
total compensation package of around $45 an hour compared to about $73 
an hour for existing skilled workers. In addition, a new non-core worker 
group, comprising up to one-third of GM's workforce, will get around $27 
an hour in wages and benefits. Both core and non-core employees will 
henceforth receive less in active-worker-health-care benefits with GM 
saving billions from the arrangement. 


The company told Wall Street investors October 15 its 2007 labor costs 
will drop from $12.6 billion last year to $10.1 billion in 2007 (45% 
below 2003 wages and benefits paid) with "significant" further declines 
from 2008 to 2011. Further, GM estimates it will reduce its long-term 
healthcare obligation to workers by $47 billion and expects over the 
next four years to retire up to 75% of its current high-paid work force 
(earning $78.21 in wages and benefits) and replace many of them with 
low-paid non-core, non-assembly line new hires (costing $25.65 in 
combined wages and benefits). 


Employee buyouts, early retirement offers and other downsizing efforts 
are coming that will let the company eliminate expensive workers and 
replace them with cheaper new ones. The contract runs four years and 
includes three lump-sum bonuses but no wage increases so annual cost of 
living adjustments won in 1948 are ended that over time will cost 
workers much more. 


It's a dark new age for GM workers as well as for those at Chrysler and 
Ford. The days of Walter Reuther-type leadership are long gone. He led 
the UAW from 1946 until his death in 1970, grew the union to more than 
1.5 million members, and over that time delivered for the rank and file 
like few other labor leaders ever did. He was a union reformer, shrewd 
bargainer, master strategist, champion of industrial democracy and 
worker rights and once said "If fighting for a more equal and equitable 
distribution of the wealth of this country is socialistic, I stand 
guilty of being a socialist." In fact, he was pro-capitalist, opposed 
forming a labor party and allied the UAW to the Democrat party and its 
imperialist agenda. 


Nonetheless, he won sizable wage increases and a historic tying of them 
to living costs and productivity gains. He also got his membership paid 
vacations, employer-funded pensions, medical insurance with defined 
benefits, improved safety and health measures, and supplemental 
unemployment benefits that guaranteed members up to 95% of their pay if 
they were laid off. That's now lost today with UAW and other union 
bosses conspiring with business for their own self-interest at the 
expense of their members. 


The UAW Chrysler betrayal was as cynical and self-serving as the GM 
deal. It was packaged around a staged six hour partial walkout of 37,000 
of the company's 49,000 work force that was more theater than strike 
action and another defeat for UAW members unless they reject the 
agreement as some locals are doing in voting so far. Some local union 
leaders oppose it as well as the terms agreed to are even more draconian 
than at GM: 


    - a new VEBA trust (only for current employees) with Chrysler 
contributing only $8.8 billion of its $18 billion long-term health care 
obligation to its 78,000 retirees; new hires will get no retirement 
health care benefits and will have to enroll in a new health care 
program that will increase deductibles, co-pays and other out-of-pocket 
expenses; current retirees for the first time will have to pay 
out-of-pocket expenses; savings to the company will exceed $300 million 
a year; 


    - a two-tiered wage and benefit arrangement with new skilled hires 
getting as little as $14 an hour or half or less the current pay rate 
and well below the $19.62 average non-union wage in the manufacturing 
sector; the agreement lets the company expand the number of low-paid 
non-core workers as well as be able to designate "Non-Core Facilities" 
in which the entire workforce will get lower pay and benefits once 
current employees are phased out; 


    - new health care concessions similar to what GM and Ford got in 
2005 that require retirees to pay part of their rising health care 
premiums; current worker pension funds will be shifted to the VEBA; 


    - the elimination of employer-paid pensions for new workers, 
replacing them with 401(k) plans in which the company will contribute 
one dollar to be invested in the stock market for every hour worked; 


    - freedom for Chrysler's private equity firm owner, Cerberus 
Capital, to downsize and close as many of its plants as it wishes with 
early retirement offers and employee buyouts ahead so expensive current 
workers can be eliminated; 


    - workers' wages will be frozen, and the Cost of Living Adjustment 
(COLA) benefit won in the two month 1970 GM strike is now lost; 


    - more flexibility for the company to outsource jobs to non-UAW 
workers at lower pay and benefits; these will include so-called 
"housekeeping functions" like janitorial and trash handling, grounds 
keeping, machine and booth cleaning and others; 


    - freedom for the company to expand the number of low-paid, 
low-benefit part-time workers as well as long-term temporary ones who 
can't gain seniority; 


    - the company freed of any commitment to build vehicles at US 
assembly plants or guarantee the number of jobs at them plus other thus 
far unreported worker concessions. 


The GM, Chrysler and upcoming Ford negotiations herald a new day for UAW 
workers in the wake of another crushing defeat affecting all working 
Americans. Gone are one million UAW jobs since 1978 (from 1.5 million to 
520,000) along with hard-won gains that took decades to achieve. No 
longer do men like Walter Reuther represent workers. Today's UAW 
leadership betrayed its members trust for its own self-interest, and 
there's no relief in sight for change. Overall, organized labor is on 
its knees and Wall Street loves it. GM stock alone rose over 5% the day 
its deal was announced. 


Looking ahead, there are no easy answers, just tough choices, and job 
one for working people is to join in solidarity for their own 
self-interest and survival. Past successes can be regained, but wishing 
won't make it so. A new political movement is needed based on social 
equity and justice with a new breed of leaders to head it. The odds for 
success are long, but the alternative is intolerable. That should be 
incentive enough to go for it. 


[Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at 
lendmanstep... at sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at 
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/ and listen to The Steve Lendman News and 
Information Hour on http://themicroeffect.com/ Mondays at noon US central 
time.]