Union officials and the auto bosses kept the terms of the DCX contract secret for four more days. The union only released the contents of the contract after briefing local UAW officials in Detroit on September 20. The 24-page union-prepared summaries of the pact began reaching workers six days after the settlement announcement. UAW officials announced that the contract was ratified by a large majority of the workers voting between September 24 and 26.

While the Wall Street Journal calls this agreement "one of the industry's richest in years," some auto workers see it differently. Richard Young, a worker with 32 years at the company and a member of UAW Local 110 at DCX's Fenton, Missouri, van assembly plant, described the contract as "pretty much the same as we've gotten in the past. It's no different: not super-good but not a bad contract."

Yvette Richardson, another member of Local 110, summed up many auto workers attitudes. "We didn't lose anything," she said.

The UAW-prepared summary reports that union members will receive raises and will continue to be covered under a cost-of-living allowance, with a slightly improved formula to offset the effects of inflation. There is a $1,350 signing bonus and a Christmas bonus of up to $600. Pension increases for both active and retired workers and other benefit improvements are reported.

The agreement includes provisions that supposedly limit the company's ability to cut its workforce and what the summary described as a "plant closing and sale moratorium." While "job security" language has been included in earlier contracts the auto bosses have slashed thousands from their payrolls and there are no indications that the announced program is any different.

This contract gives workers a 3 percent increase in each year of the contract, a first in the auto industry in 20 years, when lump sum payments replaced pay increases many years. But it is longer than the three years or less that has been the tradition in the UAW-Big Three agreements since the 1950s.

It is a four-year deal that limits union members' ability to improve their conditions. Production workers with three years or more seniority presently earn around $21 an hour including the cost-of-living allowance. New workers start at 70 percent and receive a 5 percent raise every six months.

This contract freezes the situation established over the last 20 years of concession contracts in which the national agreement settles the financial questions of the contract while job conditions, health and safety, and other working conditions are decided on by local agreement.

Jim Garrison, another Local 110 member, said, "Unlike the situation at Boeing, there has been no discussion of the bosses trying to impose some new work rules (that I am aware of). That would have generated a lot of discussion and strong views. All eyes are on the local agreement, really, and that is yet to come."

At the company's Warren, Michigan, truck plant, a member of UAW Local 140 with 27 years seniority who asked that his name not be used said, "This agreement is designed for guys like me, waiting to retire. We make up 50 percent of the workforce so they figure it will be approved. They improved the pensions to get us to leave. As we go so do the good jobs. The young workers coming in will never make 30 years, their bodies won't take it," given the speedup in production in recent years.

Shifting the question of conditions to local agreements allows the bosses more latitude in their productivity drives. The union is weakened because much smaller numbers of workers face the auto barons as they demand more speedup. As they win concessions in one location the bosses then whipsaw one local against another.

While some local unions have prepared to confront the bosses from the start of talks in June, national union officials made few preparations to strike the auto makers. Indefinite contract extensions, which can be ended by either side, were granted to Ford and GM on September 13. Then as talks reportedly became stalemated, with only hours before the expiration, workers were urged to walk out of two St. Louis area plants. A little over an hour later workers at three plants in the Indianapolis area walked out. As soon as some progress was reported the contract was extended and union officials ordered the strikers back to work.

Garrison described what happened in the St. Louis South Plant where he works, next to the van plant in Fenton. "My afternoon shift co-workers reported that the word came down the line that we were going out and we left. But by the time the day shift got there the pickets were gone. We didn't know what was happening so we started to return to work. There was so much confusion that it took management about three hours to start the line."

The Detroit Sunday Journal, a weekly newspaper published by locked-out Detroit newspaper workers, reported that the decision on the strikes "came from inside the bargaining room," and that the strikes were ended "shortly after midnight." The last national UAW strike against an auto maker was a 12-day strike against Chrysler, predecessor to DCX, in 1986.

Union officials also hailed a "new letter on corporate neutrality" that gives the UAW "limited access" to non- union employees. The union has been trying to organize non-unionized DCX plants. There is an ongoing drive at the nonunion Mercedes plant in Vance, Alabama. The union leaders hope this letter will aid them in winning a majority of the Alabama workers to the union. The UAW has failed in a similar drive recently at Honda Motors in Ohio.

The union announced a tentative agreement with GM and Delphi September 28. While the terms have not been released, press reports indicate it follows the DCX pattern with clauses allowing Delphi workers to return to GM as openings occur. Union officials have made it clear they want to postpone talks with Ford until the other agreements are signed because the number-two auto maker is planning to either spin off or sell its Visteon parts operation with 23,500 union workers. Reports of these plans have sparked anger and discussion among UAW members at Ford.

In a related development the Canadian Auto Workers Union (CAW) announced a tentative agreement with Ford in Canada on September 21, which was ratified on September 26. The agreement is similar to the contract between the UAW and DCX except that it has a three-year duration.

John Sarge is a member of UAW Local 900 at Ford in Wayne, Michigan.  
 
 
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