Chrysler’s concessions-or-die deal is the end of auto as the pace-setting, high-wage industry that it was for 60 years....From now on, working for the auto companies will be just another bust-your-hump factory job.
The government said Chrysler workers should take deep cuts to fend off bankruptcy. But the company decided on bankruptcy anyway—so the downsized new contract now becomes the ceiling. In court, wages and benefits will be ratcheted down from there, and GM and Ford workers will likely be asked to match them.
The retirees’ health care fund, the Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association (VEBA) run by the United Auto Workers (UAW), will be drastically underfunded, with devalued Chrysler stock. Benefits were cut immediately, but the bigger question is how long the fund will last at all.
Under the new contract that’s now up for grabs, wages for new hires would be cut in half, from $29 to $14, with no raises or bonuses for six years. New hires would also have reduced health care benefits and only 401(k) plans for retirement...Detroiter and Local 1700 member Tony Browning predicted that the new system would set bottom-tier workers against top-tier ones, by giving the low-paid workers incentives to bring well-paid ones down... “Look around the country—whenever they get two-tier, in the next contract they go for one-tier,” Browning said.
STANDARD BREAKERS
• The union gave up the right to strike when it bargains the next four-year contract, in September 2011. Unresolved issues will go to binding arbitration, with the stipulation that wages and benefits must be pegged to those of Chrysler’s U.S. competitors—including the non-union auto companies.
“That was our only power,” said Browning, adding that he doubted whether union members would even be allowed to vote in 2011. “It’ll be between the UAW and management,” he predicted. “They’ll make that untouchable for us.”
• Most skilled trades workers will be placed in just two classifications—a long-held management goal—with no restrictions on contracting out skilled work... Jobs will be cut and skills lost, as skilled workers become jacks-of-all-trades. Higher-skilled work—which gives workers more power—will become the exclusive province of contractors.
• There’s one silver lining under the new regime—the second-tier workforce will be younger and better able to withstand a maxed-out work pace. All plants will operate on the “team concept,” which enhances management’s flexibility to deploy workers at will, without regard to seniority. Temporary workers may be used more freely.
• Plant managers may switch to a schedule of four 10-hour days, paid at straight time. Break time is reduced by 13 percent. Vacations and holidays are cut back.
...For Bill Parker, local president at a Detroit-area plant that’s slated to close, the situation shows the folly of bargaining benefits company by company....The union should have fought for a benefits plan that transcended particular employers, he said. Now, retirement for people who spent their lives on the assembly line looks anything but golden.
http://labornotes.org/node/2254
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