There’s no love lost between carmudgeon Peter Delorenzo and GM’s failed Car Czar, the exec whose singular inability to create compelling branding or class-leading products helped transform the world’s largest automaker into a nationalized welfare queen. No wait. Sorry. The self-styled Autoextremist hates the United Auto Workers (UAW). And now that the UAW has rejected a contract with Ford that would have given it parity with post-C11 GM and Chrysler, Sweet Pete has unleashed the dogs of demagoguery. “Wait a minute, wasn’t it the rampant wage and benefit increases over the last three decades that contributed immeasurably to the domestic auto industry’s demise? And yes, it took two parties to make those deals, but really? After everything that has transpired in the last year the union is still clinging to the notion that they actually have a dog in this hunt when it comes to getting this industry off of the ground again? That somehow, some way, when things get all back to normal again they can go right back to the “M.O.” that helped bring this industry to its knees in the first place? I’ve got one word for the UAW and its behavior: Reprehensible.” DeLorenzo’s ire is not entirely misplaced, but it’s close . . .
DeLorenzo’s off-hand, “pay no attention to the in-bred idiots, corporate rapists and Ford family behind that curtain” dismissal of Motown’s mis-management, his po-faced use of the word “immeasurably” to describe the UAW’s complicity in Detroit’s demise, reveals his willingness to jettison perspective for PR. Nowhere is this more clear than his attack on the union’s rejection of the “no strike” provision in Ford’s failed contract. Displaying his usual craven spinmeistery, Sweet Pete doesn’t even mention this critical condition by name.
The UAW’s true colors have never, ever changed. It is a wildly irresponsible entity that has crippled the U.S. auto industry time and time again with its demands and its insistence on its fundamental “rights.”
“Rights” for what, exactly? The “right” to continue to contribute to the erosion of America’s industrial base? The “right” to put its selfish, totally unrealistic and woefully out of touch goals ahead of what’s best for the rest of the nation? The “right” to relentlessly scoff at basic logic and the bigger picture? The “right” to shirk accountability and responsibility in order to further their whacked-out vision of a utopian future that will never happen?
Clearly, the UAW has consistently acted against its own interests, and the interests of its employers. But Sweet Pete’s dietribe [sic] somehow avoids the simple equation that a union can’t exist without the right to strike. As much as Detroit would be better off without the UAW, expecting it to commit harakiri for the good of hugely-compensated auto execs is deeply delusional.
The bottom line here is that the UAW has squandered every last possible opportunity to talk about its “rights.” It is a misguided, malicious relic that exists in a parallel universe expressly created for the warped vision of its members, and it is simply out of touch, out of time, and out of step with the sobering realities of America’s economic future.
Just so. BUT—the bottom line here is not unionism per se. VW is a heavily unionized automaker that somehow manages to produce profit. And the difference between Motown’s unionized assembly workers’ compensation and that of non-union transplant workers is not that large. Nor is it a significant addition to the cost of producing an automobile.
The real problem is corruption, plain and simple. The corruption of a highly-paid management without transparency or accountability facilitating a highly-paid union management without transparency (a golf course?) or accountability. Attacking one member of this dysfunctional relationship while protecting the other to ensure steady consulting income is . . . reprehensible.
Did “Sweet Pete” have great uncles in the RMS Titanic band?
He is one of the better investments GM made – he stays bought.
Bruce
HEAR.. HEAR Robert, well said. The last paragraph, in a few brilliantly written sentences,sums up the whole stinking mess.
+1 Mr. Farago. Well said. I read Pete’s UAW bashathon piece and just about tossed my cookies. He really is delusional.
I’m still amazed that I used to enjoy reading Pete’s rants. Did he change, or did I?
Many years ago my airplane seatmate was a senior GM labor negotiator. I asked why the Detroit-3 didn’t counter the union pattern contract tactic by bargaining jointly, treating a strike against one as a strike against all. He said non-right to work states and provinces would deem it illegal. Regardless, there was little need. Increased labor costs were quickly recovered by boosting car prices, which the automakers informally coordinated.
Robert +10. I love a good rant. I firmly believe in Unions, that the fundamental mission of the Union is to protect its workers against corporate mismanagement and to provide the highest quality workmenship it can produce. That said, GM’s upper eschelon and the UAW that I love have grown old and fat together. Both have just been told by the Doctor to cut the fat intake, regulate their blood pressure, and actually do some quality exercise. And like most fat old men, they are completely anathemic to change. Medicare (read Gov’t assistance) will only cover stupid for so long until the money runs dry or the patient dies. It increasingly seems to me that both remain entrenched in denial of their diagnosis.
+2 Mr. Farago – Well said.
Editor’s Note: Peter is at Chrysler today along with a cast of thousands who are waiting for Sergio Marchionne to come down from the mountaintop and grace us with his visionary five-year plan for the new Chrysler-Fiat enterprise. We will be posting his column at some point later in the day. In the meantime, stay tuned… – WG
Found this note on his site today … to which I ask … Why is he at Chrysler? All the bad-mouthing “Chrysler is Dead, Finito, Caputski” coming from his Autoexcrement.com blog and he is where today? Probably there for the all-you-can-eat pasta, so we can all get more Autoexcrement high-fiber truth.
At this point is it possible that Pete is so far over the cliff that mentioning him gives him more credibility than he deserves?
Either way, your statement is spot on: “The real problem is corruption, plain and simple.”
Just so. BUT—the bottom line here is not unionism per se. VW is a heavily unionized automaker that somehow manages to produce profit. And the difference between Motown’s unionized assembly workers’ compensation and that of non-union transplant workers is not that large. Nor is it a significant addition to the cost of producing an automobile. The real problem is corruption, plain and simple. The corruption of a highly-paid management without transparency or accountability facilitating a highly-paid union management without transparency (a golf course?) or accountability. Attacking one member of this dysfunctional relationship while protecting the other to ensure steady consulting income is . . . reprehensible.
Mine am I glad I was sitting down when I read this. If somebody ever told me such a balanced, nuanced (and pithy) explanation of the relationship between an auto union and management would have been penned by RF, I woulda lost that bet.
Very nicely done. Wow, I’ve agreed with two things you written this week. One of us should be very scared.
It’s also nice to see someone on the letterhead accurately comment about labor costs at the transplants and how they compare with the UAW. Those union-less, docile workers in the South owe much of what they get to the UAW.
Man, there’s got to be a better way. I confess to be very sympathetic to what a unionized work force brings to the economic well being of this country but yeeee ikes, there’s plenty of screw ups on both sides to make one want to wipe the slate clean and start from scratch.
I actually found little to disagree with in Sweet Pete’s rant, and that’s unusual for me.
A no-strike pledge seems illogical, but there are lots of employee unions, largely governmental, that by law cannot strike.
The point is, a no-strike pledge was given to GM and Chrysler, and after decades of “pattern bargaining”, that should also be given to Ford for the duration of this contract.
Robert, your point is well taken. Unions per se are not bad, but the UAW’s greedy, corrupt leadership has done the rank and file a great disservice over the years. Match that with the greedy, corrupt, and stupid (uh, Consumer Reports, wassat?) management of the Detroit 3, and you are left with the current state of the domestic auto industry.
The european unions understand the difference b/t taking what is fair and just taking and embrace change when change is required (having worked for a heavily unionized German company I have seen it). Go and visit a Ford factory in Germany and go and visit one in Michigan, look at how the two are run (and the union does decide this through work rules).
I do beleive that VW had a UAW represented factory once and I do believe that they closed it specifically because of the quality of the UAW work and what did the UAW do to try and keep the factory open….nothing, but they did have this to say…The decision was denounced by the United Automobile Workers union, which represents the workers at the plant. Union leaders said it ”shows a shortsighted, bottom-line mentality and betrays a loyal and productive U.S. work force in Pennsylvania.”
I absolutely agree with Pete… and with RF :)
UAW has sold their future down the toilet, and D3 management right with them. Sense of entitlement needs to change, and quickly.
In Space Balls, the UAW would have been Pizza the Hut, who died eating himself.
Companies get the unions that they deserve.
The UAW is a mirror reflecting the faces of Detroit management. The same management that doesn’t care about its customers can’t be expected to care about its workers, either.
If the domestic automakers were making cars that people wanted to buy, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. If you want to worry about legacy costs, then focus on the real legacy cost — the wide variation in incentive spend between the domestics and the transplants. That’s a gap that they don’t like to talk about, but it is, by far, the largest thing that separates the domestics from the competition.
I’d tread lightly on the idea that unions as a whole in the US have not become facsimiles of what the UAW has become, or perhaps it’s just unique to CA.
Here in CA, we have a prison guard union with pensions that have contributed an unfair share to the financial instability of the state. We have grocery store clerk unions for folks at the register making more than degreed call center folks with a technical background. We have a teacher’s union whose focus on politics is done at the expense of better equipping classrooms and fighting for higher pay for high performing or improving teacher performance. We have state employee unions that after working for 20 years at a desk job, get 80% of their salary in retirement.
Unions today are a far cry from protecting worker rights, fair wages, the right to organize, etc. They have now become a tic on the rear side of shareholders or the taxpayer similarly to an underperforming chief executive such as Nardelli, Fritz or Waggoner.
I agree with John Horner’s comments above that “I’m still amazed that I used to enjoy reading Pete’s rants. Did he change, or did I?”
The AutoLamist really showed his true colors the past year or so. Whereas 8/10 of his rants were great, now only 1/10 are great. Most are just Detroit-think conventional wisdom couched with a pissed-off maverick attitude. If he is so great, why aren’t ad agencies clamoring for his advice/counsel.
Peter DeLorenzo should have quit at 500 editions, which is what he said he would originally do. Pretty much everything since then has just been complete rantings. To some extent, Robert Farago has taken up the Autoextremist mantel . . . the real unvarnished high-octane truth.
The UAW holding out for the right to strike makes sense. Only exercising that right in this climate would be worthy of Mr. Delorenzo’s venom.
You’re making me want to read Autoextremist, but unfortunately it’s hardly possible. One of the more confusing pages out there. And where’s my permalink?
As a 25-year UAW member, I took offense to PMD’s over-the-top rant. When RF is taking you to task for bashing the UAW, you have definitely gone off the deep end. Having said that, I would like to expand on the virtues of the UAW via excerpts from a recent article I wrote defending my union (please forgive the length).
Most (some?) people know that the UAW pioneered overtime pay at time and one-half, paid holidays, cost-of-living adjustments, company provided health insurance and pensions. It doesn’t matter to them that UAW members endured lengthy strikes to win these benefits. In 1945, for instance, 200,000 UAW members struck for 113 days to win paid vacations and overtime pay – things that are taken for granted now.
But the UAW has a social agenda as well, with a long history of promoting equal rights, both at the workplace and in the community. As America was going to war and UAW members were called into service, factories were being staffed by women and blacks. Racial tensions caused what were referred to as “hate strikes” from resentful white workers who fought the integration of the assembly lines. The most famous of these was staged by 25,000 white workers at Packard Motor Co. in 1943. The UAW leadership condemned the strike and threatened the workers with expulsion from the union if they didn’t return to work. The strike ended. In 1944 the UAW established a women’s bureau for equal pay and 24-hour child care services to help mothers working 10 to 16 hour days. That was a radical concept 65 years ago.
Yes, the union haters say, that was all good stuff, but these achievements are in most cases etched in the stone of federal law. The UAW has outlived its usefulness. Unions drive higher costs and inefficiencies and produce lower quality that non-union manufacturers. This is a fallacy, and there is irrefutable evidence to prove it.
When it comes to assembly plant productivity, union workforces win hands down. Every one of the top 10 most productive assembly plants in North America are populated with union workforces according to the 2008 North American Harbour Report, the bible of manufacturing productivity. You want segment winners? The top four in the compact segment – the domain of the Asians – are all UAW plants. Midsize car – CAW. Midsize pickup – UAW. Midsize SUV – UAW. Midsize van – UAW. Large pickup – UAW top four. There are no non-union transplants (“Detroit south”) who are segment winners. Here’s an apples to apples comparison for you. The NUMMI plant (remember, it’s closing), builds the Toyota Corolla with UAW members. The Toyota plant in Cambridge, Canada does also. Guess who’s more efficient? Yes, UAW tops non-union, using 3.8 hours-per-vehicle less, a huge difference considering the gap between the top four in that segment are only separated by 2.16 hpv.
On the quality front, union plants had 5 segment winners in the most recent J.D. Power Initial Quality Survey. There are another 9 top-three finishers. Of the top 4 quality plants in North America, three are union, two UAW. The difference between the Toyota, Honda, Chevy and Ford brands is statistically insignificant ( 99 – 103 problems-per-hundred vehicles).
So why all the animosity? To a large degree, it’s misinformation or a lack of good information. It’s also people clinging to antiquated stories about union workers that probably weren’t true to begin with. This much is certain – today’s UAW member is more productive and produces quality just as good as their non-union counterparts.
rnc wrote – “Union leaders said it ‘’shows a shortsighted, bottom-line mentality and betrays a loyal and productive U.S. work force in Pennsylvania. -“
I believe that watching bottom-line of an operation is more farsighted than shortsighted. That would be true for a VW plant in the 80’ies and a Ford truck plant now.
The UAW membership better wake up and smell the off shoring and outsourcing coffee, sooner rather than later.
Fair or not, nationally there won’t be much sympathy for the UAW if their approach becomes one of gimme, gimme, gimme regardless of Ford’s debt load or long term profitability.
…somehow avoids the simple equation that a union can’t exist without the right to strike.
I respectfully disagree.
Demanding the right to keep a finger on a button that, if pressed, blows the company to smithereens is the simple equation to drive that work (and company) to a different labor pool where the company not only achieves that, but scores a Trifecta: No Strike, lower wages, and lower benefits.
The No Strike is the tipping point.
Take a road trip to Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois. Seattle IAM National leaders just drank their own Kool-Aid.
Well put RF. As much as I want to see the UAW have the same contract with Ford, it’s illogical to expect them to willingly ratify it. At the end of the day, the UAW members at Ford are concerned with Ford’s situation, not GM or Chryslers.
And while we can debate how “relatively” good Ford is doing compared to cross-town rivals vs. just good, the fact is all signs point to improvement. Ford is in a race with the economy, but is improving. And I think it’s because the following may not apply to them:
The corruption of a highly-paid management without transparency or accountability
Ford had indeed been mismanaged, but at the 11th hour the Ford family, whose special stock shares and personal fortune is tied to the company, hired an outsider to get things in order. Over at GM and Chrysler, there was no family vested interest, just executives ready to get a parachute and bail. The board at GM is full of independently rich people not directly tied to GM fortunes.
Management with a vested interest is the only management that will succeed long term. And Ford, with all its faults, still has the closest thing to that.
@gm-uawtool….. I spent over 36 years UAW and CAW. Good comment brother.
I couldn’t agree with Pch101 more in his statement that
Companies get the unions that they deserve.
The UAW and Big 3 deserve each other, big time.
With all the anti-union animus out there, it’s easy to forget that it’s difficult to argue that workers should take wage and benefit concessions when the company is making money and the future looks good. Well, duh – no wonder workers aren’t jumping to slit their own wrists.
What if instead of asking Ford employees to take it in the shorts, they offered to keep the status quo?
Anyone who thinks the UAW will strike Ford is smoking something I’d like to get a puff of. This is typical negotiating banter.
Nobody but Joe Sherlock has thought of this little tid-bit. It’s in today’s blog (November 4th 2009), top story.
http://www.joesherlock.com/blog.html
I’m no legal beagle, but I suspect he has a good point.
After all, the UAW essentially part-owns two of Ford’s US competitors – “through the pension fund”.
Before any UAW apologists start in about it not really being owned by the UAW, let’s go back and look at how the Government courts saw Al Capone’s various “unconnected business enterprises”.
You certainly cannot deny that unions have had a tremendously positive influence in pay and working conditions. If you doubt that, read “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair. Many of the benefits workers take for granted now-8 hour workdays, time and half for overtime, retirement and medical benefits were pioneered by unions. General Motors made the mistake of trying to buy labor peace by simply agreeing with whatever demands the UAW made and passing the costs on the customer. All good things must come to an end and it eventually ended when General Motors ceased to be able to make profits on only truck and SUVs, and sold everything else at a loss. There existed a symbiotic relationship between GM and UAW management aided by secrecy and an almost total lack of transparency.
If the union wants to demand the sun and the moon, they can certainly have that right, but it requires management slap them down to more reasonable expectations and GM management certainly failed to do that.
So why all the animosity? To a large degree, it’s misinformation or a lack of good information. It’s also people clinging to antiquated stories about union workers that probably weren’t true to begin with. This much is certain – today’s UAW member is more productive and produces quality just as good as their non-union counterparts
My son is challenged every day, trying to get union tradespeople to do their job. Its stall-stall-stall so they can work weekends for overtime. This is where the animosity comes from.
@mfgreen40 – I don’t know for whom/where your son works, but I can assure you that in my plant, skilled trades overtime is nonexistent. With the 4-10 hour day schedule we work, Fridays are clear for whatever needs to be done. Did situations like the one you describe happen in the past? Probably, but if a manager can’t get a worker to do his job, whose fault is that? There’s a quick road to discipline and it works like this – manager gives a direct order, employee refuses, manager disciplines employee with a disciplinary layoff.
When it comes to assembly plant productivity, union workforces win hands down.
You’re on a slippery slope with this one. If you want bragging rights for good quality, then you also need to expect the blame for bad quality. And since the domestics lack the reliability of the best transplants, that blame is going to fall on you.
In any case, it’s a mistake. Assembly quality is a function of good plant management, as well as good engineering and parts quality. On a well-managed line, the quality of the workers should be fairly irrelevant; any worker with a reasonable level of training should be able to accomplish a good result. If the assembly line needs heroes to work properly, then it’s a badly managed line.
Assembly efficiency is also not necessarily anything to brag about. The reason that Toyota’s and Honda’s use of TQM produces the best results is because of the emphasis on the quality of output, which can come at the expense of “efficiency” if that requires the line to be stopped.
With TQM, management understands that zero defects is a more important goal than lower man-hours per unit. If a bad product ends up in the hands of the customer, it really doesn’t matter how “efficient” the line was — the outcome is still bad.
The UAW is necessary because Detroit management sucks, but it doesn’t help to create a better product. The UAW may provide valuable protections to its workers, but it doesn’t do the consumer a damn bit of good to have it there. Not that it needs to — the output of the assembly line should be good, regardless of whether the workers are unionized or not.
@pch101 – So we don’t get credit for being as efficient as non-union workers, but we sure got our chops busted when we were lagging in the Harbor report. Initial quality is a good indicator of assembly skill, which is why I refer to JD Power. We can only use the parts we’re given so if your headlight fogs over after 3 years that’s not on us – even though we shoulder the blame. As far as needing to be heroes on the line, unfortunately that is sometimes the case when you have a 59 minute an hour job. Have you ever worked an assembly line? Trust me, not everyone can do/handle it.
So we don’t get credit for being as efficient as non-union workers
Efficiency and inefficiency both go to management.
As I said, you can’t have it both ways. If you want “credit” for good stuff, then you must take the blame for the bad. And since there is more bad than good at the domestics, you are setting yourselves up for a fall.
I give responsibility to management. When the players are bad, I blame the coach.
The workers are responsible for following their training and for being reasonably diligent, but they can’t make or break the operation. I don’t expect them to rescue a bad plant — they don’t have the power to accomplish that much.
It’s not your fault that the designs and the parts suck. But you don’t earn bragging rights when the designs and parts are good, either.
I have to many friends that worked for the unions so i know how they are. My friends thinks it’s great because if you didn’t like the job u were doing u just didn’t keep up with the line. They couldn’t fire u so they would replace u with someone else who could keep up, and they gave u a gravy job. Another thought it was funny coz when he would file grievances sometime he would be down there half a day on the clock doing nothing. Another told me he would work a lot of double shifts to make that big money on overtime. He said he could do both shifts on his machine in 8 hours and then just walk around and talk to his friends the second 8 hours while making over $40.00 an hour.I delivered parts there and there was always some old man there at the picnic table we sat at. He always had his fork lift beside him there. About once an hour over the intercom u would hear the line ask for scrap removal, so he would go take there scrap away and set a new container in place for them. Took every bit of 5 minutes. He worked maybe two hours a week and had to work every weekend coz if production ran somebody had to haul the scrap away. The really bad thing was how bad he ragged on the company. All he did was talk bad about them. He would have never made it in the real world. Lots more instances too. I will never have pity for any union.
mattstairs, +1. RF, 0. I agree that fair treatment requires bashing both sides. But in regards to Pete’s analysis of the UAW, which was the focus of his article, it was pretty accurate. Just because it doesn’t include the other side doesn’t mean it’s inaccurate.
A union has more purpose than striking. There are unions that exist but can’t strike. As mattstairs mentioned, by law. My friend belongs to a railroad union. Strikes not allowed.
I have to chime in here to get this off my chest. It really has little to do with the UAW but with unions in general.
I witnessed a car accident this morning. Some bonehead had rearended into a line of cars waiting at a redlight, it had rearended a van carrying children. A parent was beside the van trying to resuscitate what appeared to be a baby either choking or not breathing. I pulled over and called 911 and in a bout of stress, asked to be dispatched to ambulance (the 911 operator asked). I should have asked for fire department. I had forgotten the ambulance services here are on strike and only doing essential services. I got routed to an answering machine and put on hold. After what seemed like an eternity, somebody else got through so I, not wanting to be in the way, left. 5 minutes later, my cell phone rang with somebody from ambulance services asking if I still needed an ambulance. I have no idea if the baby lived or died, but I was subjected to watching this. My opinion of union mentality has fallen through the floor.
I think that the unions historically have done a great job making the workplace safer, and for worker’s rights.
However, the UAW is so clearly out of touch with reality.
Ford didn’t file C11 or take bailout money (FROM IT’S OWN MEMBER’S taxes remember…) so the UAW is going to try and squeeze even more out of them just when they look like they will recover?
Short sighted at best, UAW. I mean, cut off your nose to spite your face much?
Also, I agree wholeheartedly with pch101. UAW cannot have it’s cake and eat it too.
BEKEN: I think you should report this incident… the 911 operator should have directed you to the Fire Department automatically. I think of all industries, ambulance drivers should fall under federally regulated “no strike” laws.
gm uaw tool This is happening now, of course the worker does not refuse, he is an expert at dragging his feet and making the job last as long as possible,the managers are soon wore out and give up and the union (wins) again. They have been winning for years but now they are reaping what they sow. I myself have been a member of the UAW and the teamsters.They call it job security. You will have to admit it is very difficult to fire a bad union member. If your plant is different, congratulations.
beken has provided an excellent example of the awesome power of the strike. Unions strike to inflict pain and thereby win their objectives, and in the instance he cited there’s plenty of pain. Of course, here it’s an innocent third party who suffers, not an evil boss and/or owner, but the point is much the same. The government or non-profit entity will hasten to get things back to normal.
(Note: I wonder if the ambulance union was actually “on strike” or just carrying out a reduction in service. That particular union may be like many public-sector unions that do not formally have the power to strike. No matter, because slowdowns, Blue Flu, lunatic “working by the book,” blizzards of grievances and such are alternatives to inflict the requisite degree of pain.)
gm-uawtool mentioned a strike of 113 days. This reminds us that although the Debt3 automakers and the UAW both face “mutually assured destruction” as the outcome of a lengthy strike, it is the company hit by a strike that has the most incentive to yield. Armageddon comes quickly for a firm desperate for cash flow. The D3 are all in bad shape, even if assembly lines workers don’t believe it. Neither GM, Chrysler nor Ford can survive a strike that substantially impairs operations. That’s why the companies always have said and will say “uncle” first.
In contrast, striking workers have resources to fall back upon: strike benefits, government benefits (I assume Michigan is particularly generous here), and various kinds of assistance from communities and private organizations. Big media works to turn public opinion further in favor of the workers. It wouldn’t surprise me if a sizable fraction of UAW members would find a short strike right now a welcome break to go deer hunting. Plus, new contracts typically pay back-to-work bonuses to help recover pay foregone during the strike. No wonder those Ford workers said “Hell NO;” it’s always worked for them.
The assembly people down in the dirty south better hope that the UAW doesn’t disolve, or they will be looking at 50% pay cuts….. No doubt they are reaping the benefits from paying members.
If owners, management and labour don’t consider themselves part of the agreed enterprise, then the business will be dysfunctional.
As people are involved, you can be sure a solution will require goodwill. Without goodwill, the dysfunction will tend toward extremes.
There will be strange forces at work in such a situation and no ONE party will be “at fault”.
Having said that, I believe there is a desperate need to stop the rich getting much richer and the working poor getting more poor. We have a dysfunctional world right now, especially financially. Everyone can play a part.