An article in Business Week describes the settlements as "a clear case of highway robbery [of the auto companies].… But nobody blinked an eye, not even the Big Three shareholders or inflation-wary Wall Street economists."

Delphi, a parts spin-off from GM, avoided a duplication of the 1998 confrontation in Flint, Michigan, between with the union and GM, by signing a separate contract that matches GM's wage and benefits scale for eight years. GM will guarantee their health and pension benefits for these eight years.

The settlements negotiated, however, further weaken the union. These contracts have a four-year duration instead of three years, the tradition for decades. And, in spite of the numerous strikes recently—from Flint to Dayton, Ohio—over job conditions, the current settlements do nothing to shift this vital issue into the national agreements.

Their omission as a national issue reinforces the employers' ability to whipsaw workers—to pit UAW locals against each other and, even more so, against their counterparts in Canada. Members of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) have just adopted three-year contracts. Auto workers in the United States and Canada will face the auto giants at different times, weakening the potential for international solidarity.

The contracts come at a time when workers know the auto bosses are making superprofits and when working people's increasing resistance and growing solidarity are winning gains in other industries.

Business Week notes, "While Detroit might appear to be a holdup victim, in fact, the UAW's winnings—of 3% annual pay hikes—are less than the 4% that union workers won at Boeing, AT&T and elsewhere."

The so-called new job-security provision in this year's contracts does not prevent the auto barons from continuing to cut their workforce through attrition. GM can drop as many as 30,000 workers. "If jobs are lost because of market-driven reductions in sales volumes, the new-hire obligations don't apply," the article in Business Week stated.

With their eyes on the global market, U.S. auto barons will seek to match the productivity efficiency of some competitors, like Toyota, Honda, and Nissan, while driving production to dominate markets in Europe and South America. Auto workers can expect the speedup, overloading jobs, and overtime to continue and worsen.

In the settlement with DMX, UAW officials won the company's agreement to remain "neutral" in the union's efforts to organize workers at the nonunion Mercedes plant in Alabama.

The front page of the October 29 issue of the union-busting Detroit News reports that "even though the company agreed to remain 'neutral,' Daimler-Chrysler AG has increased the wages and benefits for workers at the Alabama plant that allow them to keep up with the economic gains negotiated by the UAW."

Negotiations between the UAW and Ford, which is having its most profitable year in history, gave the best expression of the pressure from the ranks.

The auto giant announced plans to follow GM's lead and divest its Visteon parts division. Many workers saw this move as an attempt by the Ford bosses to close more plants and slash the wages of some 23,500 people employed in the parts plants, continuing the trend in the industry to widen the gap in wages and working conditions between parts and assembly workers.

The UAW officialdom set a strike deadline against Ford for 11:59 p.m. October 8 , the first national walkout the company has faced since 1976. But the deadline was extended by the officialdom minute by minute for 13.5 hours.

Even then, some workers tried to put their stamp on the outcome. Workers shut down the Auto Alliance plant in Flat Rock, Michigan; the Explorer assembly plant in St. Louis; a truck assembly plant in Kansas City; and a small pickup truck assembly plant in St. Paul, Minnesota.

At other Ford plants, smaller numbers of workers left the shop, affecting operations without completely stopping production. At the Michigan Truck Plant, just outside Detroit, scores of UAW Local 900 members showed up before the expiration to help set up picket lines if a strike was called.

The extension became a point of discussion and anger. Dana Docusen, a metal finisher with five and half years seniority, expressed the opinion, "The union shouldn't have set a deadline if we can't walk out. It makes us look weak." He added, "There was a sense of pride and solidarity in the plant and now its like we told the schoolyard bully to meet us at the flag pole and then we don't show up."

In New Jersey at Ford's Edison Assembly Plant workers expressed widely differing opinions about the threatened strike. Gus Angelo, a 28-year Ford employee on the Final Line, argued that strike action was called for because, "It is important to protect the Visteon people. It's not just the 23,000 workers it's their families, too." In contrast, Lilian Holt a body shop worker with 24 years at the company, said, " I hope we don't strike, I have bills to pay."

All three contracts with their four-year duration include a 3 percent wage increase each year, a $1,350 signing bonus, new Christmas bonuses for DMX workers, and increases in the pension benefits for all retirees. The two-tier wage scale for new hires is unchanged.

Most UAW locals have adopted the national agreement. But local agreements, most of which are still to be negotiated, can generate some resistance. Workers in UAW Local 980, Edison, New Jersey, passed their local agreement by about 61 percent after a long discussion both contracts. At the GM metal stamping plant in Parma, Ohio, workers expressed little interest in the national contract, but have voted down a local proposal twice.

Jean Luc Duval and Willie Reid are members of UAW Local 235. UAW members John Sarge, Susan Anmuth, and Brad Downs contributed to this article.  
 
 
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