More Union Resistance in Auto Industry

Here’s the scenario: The economy is in the worst shape it has been in for a generation. Your industry is in serious financial distress and people in your business are losing jobs all over the country. You happen to be working, but your union is negotiating a new contract that will affect a buyer of your plant, a buyer that might be able to keep everyone working. What do you do? Make serious efforts to negotiate or reject all offers?

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If you are the UAW you cut your nose off to spite your face, apparently. At least that seems to be the case in Indianapolis, Indiana where the UAW has rejected concessions in a labor dispute at the GM plant there. Even worse, the union recalcitrance is causing a buyer of the plant to back out putting everyone’s jobs in jeopardy.

Addison, Ill.-based JD Norman Industries said it is dropping its effort to buy the factory after an announcement late Monday that United Auto Workers members had voted 457-96 against accepting the concessions. That means the 80-year-old plant will close next year, and the city and county will lose one of their biggest tax revenue generators. At least one state politician has charged that the vote also means more layoffs at other area auto suppliers.

Nice going UAW. The possible purchaser of the plant has begged off the acquisition and wishes the employees well. That’s the big kiss off if I ever heard one. But it is also a bad sign for other plants.

The Indianapolis situation could foreshadow the problem of trying to sell GM factories that employ a lot of veteran GM workers, said Gary Chaison, a labor expert at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. Cutting pay is not popular, even if it saves job. It took two votes before 2,200 parts workers at UAW Local 699 near Saginaw approved pay cuts negotiated by senior UAW officials in late June.

… even if it saves jobs. Isn’t that just the way a union works? They won’t bend even if it saves jobs. One can only shake a head in disgust.

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