US auto union goes to court against its own members

The week began with the agreement by the United Auto Workers union (UAW) to grant historic concessions to General Motors, including the company’s demand to cut billions of dollars worth of health care benefits for its 750,000 workers, retirees and their dependents. The agreement will impose enormous hardships on former auto workers and their families, including the imposition of hundreds of dollars a year in out-of-pocket expenses for premiums, deductibles and emergency room visits.

It will also cut the pay of active workers, and establish for the first time the framework for a “defined contribution” as opposed to “defined benefit” health care plan—thus marking the beginning of the end of guaranteed benefits.

DaimlerChrysler and Ford immediately said they would seek similar concessions from their US workers. And both General Motors CEO Richard Wagoner and UAW President Ron Gettelfinger indicated that the concessions agreement was only a down payment on further cost reductions to be imposed on the backs of the workers, including a new wave of plant closings and job cuts, and further concessions in the contract that will be negotiated after the current pact expires in 2007.

The actions by the UAW in the days that followed the announcement of the agreement demonstrated even more clearly the antagonism that exists between this organization and the workers it supposedly represents.

The agreement evoked widespread anger against both the company and the union. Pensioners argued that the company was reneging on its commitment and robbing them of medical benefits they had worked three decades or more to earn. Others expressed outrage over the UAW’s insistence that retired workers would not be permitted to vote on the settlement.

Anticipating a wave of legal challenges by retirees against both GM and the union itself, the UAW filed a complaint before US District Court Judge Robert Cleland in Detroit asking the judge to legally sanction the agreement with GM. According to the Detroit Free Press, “legal experts immediately suggested that they took such an unusual step to keep disgruntled retirees from challenging the union’s right to negotiate such concessions and tying the deal up in years of litigation.”

The pretext the UAW used to go into court underscores the cynicism of the union officialdom. The legal action was depicted as a fight against GM’s threat to unilaterally terminate or modify retiree health benefits that are guaranteed under the collective bargaining agreement. Noting that GM CEO Richard Wagoner had threatened to do just that last June, the UAW requested that Judge Cleland issue a permanent injunction barring such action.

The UAW complaint was filed in the name of two retired Michigan auto workers, whom the union asked the judge to accept as representatives in a class action on behalf of half a million retired autoworkers and their families.

This was all window dressing to give the appearance that the UAW was trying to defend the retirees’ benefits and uphold the right of the rank and file to have a say in any changes. In fact, the opposite was the case. The motion explained that the company and the union had already reached an agreement on the retiree health benefit issue that made the previous dispute a moot point. The “plaintiffs anticipate the lawsuit will be settled” in the next 90 days, the motion stated. With this issue taken off the table, the motion suggested the only business left was getting Judge Cleland to sanction the agreement.

Read More
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/oct2005/uaw-o22.shtml