BY JOHN SARGE AND MARK GILSDORF

DETROIT, Michigan - On September 14 the contracts between the United Automobile Workers (UAW) and the Big Three auto makers-Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors (GM) expire. This takes place at a time when the auto bosses are pushing to cut costs and worsen conditions of their unionized workforce.

The UAW represents almost 400,000 workers at the Big Three; 216,000 at 149 GM locations, 104,000 at 70 Ford plants and 66,000 at 45 Chrysler factories. For the past several decades the union has negotiated a contract at one auto company, then demanded the other two sign a similar agreement.

The big business press reflects the employers' desire for concessions. The August 23 Wall Street Journal reports that the companies aim to reduce the number of job classifications to have greater flexibility in forcing autoworkers to learn and do more jobs. They all want to contract parts manufacturing out to lower paid non-union parts suppliers to lower costs, a process known as outsourcing in the industry.

Early speculation in the union and in the press was that Chrysler would be the target for this year, but the Wall Street Journal reported Chrysler "made it clear that it wouldn't accept limits on its right to outsource parts."

The New York Times reported August 26 that the UAW "is leaning toward negotiating a new national contract first" at GM and Ford. The Big Three negotiators all want to write the first contract because it gives them a chance to structure it to meet their needs.

"These talks are critical to improving GM's competitive position in the global marketplace," Gerald A. Knechtel, GM's chief labor negotiator, said in a August 23 statement.

What GM plans to do to become "competitive" is lower the cost of assembling vehicles. "GM poses the biggest challenge for the UAW," Wall Street Journal asserted. "The No. 1 automaker needs to cut thousands of jobs to be as productive as its rivals and it wants to buy more parts from cheaper, nonunion suppliers."

The bosses at GM have the highest production costs in the U.S. auto industry because they didn't slash their work-force in the 1980's like their rivals at Ford and Chrysler. They also seek to lower their labor cost per vehicle.

For the last three years each GM car and truck has averaged over $2,000 in labor costs while Chrysler spent around $1600 and Ford around $1250. GM plans to cut another 70,000 workers in the coming years. This is on top of slashing 22,000 workers since the last contract in 1993 and 58,000 workers in the three years before that. In order to cut 70,000 jobs the company wants to shift more work to low cost parts suppliers and cut the wages of workers at the corporation's Delphi parts division.

An indication of what GM wants is found in the contract it signed with International Union of Electrical Workers (IUE) Local 801 in Dayton, Ohio in July. The union represents about 3000 workers at Delphi's Harrison Thermal plant, makers of auto air conditioning compressors. Starting pay for production workers has been lowered to 50 percent of the full wage of $18 an hour and it will take fifteen years to reach full pay. Skilled trades workers, who up until now started at full pay, will come into the plant at 70 percent.

In return, Delphi promised to guarantee 1500 jobs for fifteen years and offered a $15,000 retirement incentive. A lower starting wage is important to the owners of the auto companies because there are an expected 250,000 retirements in the next seven years. GM could have upwards of 15,000 workers retiring in each of the next few years.

The Big Three are facing growing competition. Not only do they challenge each other, but in the last 13 years Japanese auto makers have expanded their North American annual production from 33,508 in 1983 to a projected 3.2 million vehicles in 2000.

One response from the auto bosses has been to shift production to other parts of the world. On August 20 Chrysler announced a new factory in Brazil. But to make their North American operations more profitable the Big Three must extract more concessions from United States and Canadian workers.

Confronted with the drive by the auto makers the UAW leadership is not preparing the union ranks to respond. Many union locals at Big Three plants have not had union meetings since negotiations started in June. Even the strike authorization votes was done by ballot without organized discussion in many locations.

After a meeting on August 22 with 500 local union presidents and bargaining chairmen that was expected to set a target company in negotiations, UAW President Steve Yokich made his position clear, "Our membership didn't elect us to go out on strike. They elected us to get an agreement." No company was targeted.

Stock prices of the Big Three all rose that day, a result many Wall Street analysts attributed to Yokich's announcement.

There are reports that one consideration among UAW top officials is to avoid anything that may endanger the reelection of U.S. President William Jefferson Clinton. In the days leading up to the Democratic Party convention, UAW officials were actively trying to turn autoworkers out for planned appearances by the president.

The situation is somewhat different in Canada. The Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) contract also expires on September 14. The CAW President Buzz Hargrove told the press in July that a strike against GM "was very likely," because of the corporations here plan to cut the work force and push on outsourcing.

John Sarge is a member of UAW local 900 and works for Ford, Mark Gilsdorf is a member of UAW local 247.  
 
 
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