The UAW Brandishes The S-Word
The talks about a new labor deal between Ford and the UAW have barely begun, and both sides already utter the dreaded s-word: Strike.
“The last thing we want to do is incur a strike,” said Marty Malloy, Ford’s vice president for labor affairs, when the talks started. “We work great with the UAW.”
UAW’s Bob King answered: “I don’t think about strikes. We don’t collectively think about strikes.” According to Reuters, the UAW might seek the members’ permission to strike, but King said that was routine and had been done many times in the past.
So why pull out the s-word when the talks have just begun?
Ford is the only automaker where the UAW can strike. At GM or Chrysler, there is a no strike clause.
Also, there is an interesting piece of new math.
Malloy said Ford’s total costs were about $58 an hour per hourly worker, $8 more than its foreign rivals.
King has different numbers. But “we would respectfully do our math a little bit differently, but we’ll talk about that at the bargaining table.”
Amazing. Didn’t we hear that they work at near slave labor wages down South, and now they are only 8 bucks apart? And if King has different numbers, then that can only mean that he thinks Ford’s labor costs are closer to the foreigners.
Interesting, interesting.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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If the UAW wants another $10,000,000,000 payday they need to drive Ford into bankruptcy before the next election.
My thoughts are too "political" to actually post BUT..... Let's equalize the playing field. Blue-collar often competes with millions of "entrants." How about allowing a horde of higher-educated "entrants" to enter and compete with the "better class" of USA worker? Supply/demand. Fairness. Equality. Market demand. Outsource. I bet there is a chap or two in India as or more qualified than any potential CEO in the USA.
What I find apalling is the fact that nobody's mentioned something even more salient than the s-word and that is the u-word. Unfair. Why is it "fair" for Ford Motor Company, a taxpaying organization, and the rest of us who pay taxes to be forced to bail out GM and Chrysler - after which huge losses are incurred and after which Chrysler is essentially "given" to foreigners? Much of this in deference to the UAW who tend to vote for one particular political party. On top of which the most unfair cut of all - the fact that GM and Chrysler's UAW "contracts" have a no-strike clause while Ford's does not. Perhaps if Ford were smart, they'd concentrate their engineering and development in this country, and if this unlevel playing field persists, they'd be smarter to close down UAW plants and have suppliers set-up contract plants in the south to assemble product. Then the advantage would be theirs instead of GM's and Crisis-ler's.
I hope they strike. Death to the Birch 3!