Union Coalition At Delphi

    Before I go off to vote in the New York City mayoral election (for Freddy Ferrer, of course), I caught this item in today's Wall Street Journal. I had heard about this Delphi coalition yesterday from a friend in the UAW.

UAW, Other Unions Join Forces To Increase Pressure on Delphi
By KRIS MAHER in Pittsburgh and KAREN LUNDEGAARD and JOHN D. STOLL

After weeks of clear signals that Delphi Corp. plans to slash wages and benefits, the United Auto Workers and five other unions are forming a coalition covering about 33,650 Delphi workers to join in a "strong, coordinated fight" against the auto-parts maker.

Representatives from the six unions will meet next week in Detroit to plan a campaign that will likely involve trying to persuade Delphi's suppliers, as well as local politicians and clergy in communities where the company has facilities, to pressure it to moderate its demands.

Separately, Delphi -- which last month filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy-court protection -- said it is in a legal dispute with five suppliers that threatened to stop supplying parts or services unless they were paid. Delphi paid the suppliers, but under protest. Delphi spokeswoman Claudia Baucus said the suppliers later this month must prove to the bankruptcy judge they are "essential suppliers" and need to be paid. If the court sides with Delphi, the suppliers must refund the money to the company.

The dispute in part centers on payments ranging from $58,617 to just over $1 million that Delphi made to the suppliers since filing for bankruptcy but now contends it should get back. The suppliers include Lee Co.; Macauto USA Inc.; Proto Manufacturing Inc.; Behr Industries Corp.; and Schmidt Technology GMBH, according to Delphi. A Macauto official declined to comment. Representatives at Lee, Proto, Behr and Schmidt didn't return calls.

Delphi said suppliers are obligated to maintain regular shipments and services under U.S. bankruptcy law. The dispute was reported yesterday in the Financial Times.

The formation of the union coalition, which calls itself the "Mobilizing@Delphi Coalition," comes as a fringe UAW group that favors a strike if a deal isn't worked out continues to attract attention.

James Clark, president of the IUE-CWA, which represents 8,500 workers at Delphi, said the coalition would try to send a broader message. "This is bigger than just Delphi," he said. Unions said they also intended to send a message to Robert S. "Steve" Miller, Delphi's chairman and chief executive, who has said repeatedly that Delphi can survive only if it cuts wages to around $9 an hour from $25.

Paul Krell, spokesman for the UAW, which represents some 24,000 Delphi workers, said while the unions have been public on issues like executive compensation, the coalition means it will "step it up." The United Steelworkers of America, which represents about 900 Delphi workers, also is involved. The three other unions represent fewer than 100 Delphi workers each.

Labor experts also viewed the move as a way to mobilize UAW locals that had been agitating to stage protests or even strikes. "I think the UAW had a sense that maybe they couldn't keep a lid on some of those locals," said Robert Bruno, associate professor of labor and industrial relations at the University of Illinois-Chicago.

On Sunday, a fringe group of UAW members, many employed by Delphi, met in Michigan to vent anger and show support for work slowdowns. The group favors a potential strike if the UAW fails to broker a deal more favorable than current offers, said Todd Jordan, a Delphi worker from Kokomo, Ind. While the group isn't officially tied to the UAW's leadership, it holds clout within Delphi's hourly rank-and-file.

A spokesman for General Motors Corp., Delphi's former parent and its largest customer, said the auto maker is working on a contingency plan in the event of a Delphi strike, but he declined to offer more details.

Comments

[Joe Hill]

We can expect that the "contingency plan" of Delphi management will take advantage of the fact that most of their capacity is now located outside the borders of the US - fifty plants in Mexico alone. Any coalition to take on Delphi must include as many non-US unions and workers as possible. In Mexico, most of the plants are "represented" by corrupt unions allied with the government and employers, but there are dissident movements in many of the plants that have in the past reached out to IUE-CWA and UAW for support, and that would undoubtedly be willing to join in coalition with US unions.

[power worker]

Sometime during the past month you received an e-mail call to action from me. I hope you read and carefully considered the content of that e-mail. I wanted to follow-up with you to clarify a few things:

I’m a working-class American just like you
I value the lifestyle many hard-working Americans have been able to achieve
I recognize many other hard-working Americans have not yet been able to achieve that same lifestyle
I see our ability as hard-working Americans to maintain a quality lifestyle slipping away due to unchecked corporate greed and corrupt politicians who facilitate that corporate greed for their own gain
I fear for the lifestyle our children and grandchildren will not be able to achieve as hard-working Americans if we do not stand up and say “No More!”
I understand that there are good and sincere politicians, labor leaders, and corporate leaders who do not agree with the unchecked greed but are unable to stop it without our help and support
None of us can do it alone. Not you, not me, not those good and sincere politicians and corporate leaders who want hard-working Americans to have a living wage, secure pensions and healthcare, not the labor leaders……but together, we can show the world that a day without American workers is a day without profit.

So once again, I’m calling on you to do two things, 1.) send my two e-mails to everyone you know and ask them to support this effort and 2.) stay home with your family on December 1, 2005 and make sure you do not purchase anything. This simple act will show businesses and politicians large and small alike they cannot survive without a healthy working class America. Grocery stores, Shopping malls, Gas stations, Oil change shops, Restaurants, Hotels, Auto Plants, Airlines, Transit companies, Schools Boards, Big Oil companies, Construction companies, Lawyers, Politicians, etc., will all see how important it is they support the American worker. A day without our dollars and services is a day they cannot afford to repeat.

The last thing I’d like to say is I know how scary and perhaps a little crazy this idea seems for many of you. Again, I refer you to the simple but powerful act of defiance Rosa Parks employed. I’m sure she was afraid when they called the cops and I’m sure there must have been a part of her wondering why she was doing such a crazy thing when she could have simply gone along with the established rules and life would have gone on as usual. But look at what she did to change our world because she simply stayed put! God bless her and God bless all of you – working class Americans who are the backbone of this country and the world. Let’s bring the other workers around the globe up to our level rather than allowing our lifestyle to be brought down to theirs.

United We Stand – Pass it On.

Power Worker wrote:
Rosa Parks did it - so can we! A simple act of defiance by this small woman started a movement that brought dignity to her entire race. On the 1st of December 1955, Mrs. Rosa Parks, an African-American seamstress, was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for not standing and letting a white bus rider take her seat. That simple act of defiance was the match that lit the fire of the civil rights movement.

I'm calling on working class people everywhere to use sister Rosa's example and start a movement to restore our dignity as workers. For the workers at Enron who were robbed of their pensions and livlihoods, for the airline workers whose pensions and wages are being savaged, for the workers of Delphi who are being asked to roll back wages, health care, and pension benefits due to corporate mismanagement, for american auto workers, teachers, city, county, municipal workers and retirees being asked to roll back wages, health care, and pensions while corporate management sends american jobs overseas and the right wing tries to destroy the public schools responsible for educating workers and their families, for truck drivers and consumers forced to pay outrageous gas prices only to see record profits recorded by big oil companies.....sit down and be counted with one simple act of defiance. Simply stay home on Thursday, December 1, 2005 and help start a movement that restores our dignity as working class americans. Send a message to Corporations, Politicians, Policy Makers, and Labor Leaders alike - they cannot survive without us! We've worked too hard and too long in our America to watch them reduce our wages, health care, and pension benefits to the point where we cannot properly raise our families, send our children to college, and care for our sick loved ones.

On December 1, 2005, fifty years to the day of Rosa's brave act of defiance, join with working class people all across America and stay home. This small act of defiance will send a loud and clear message - hands off our pensions and health care benefits - we demand jobs that provide our families the dignity we deserve - a living wage, health care benefits, and a secure retirement. If trucks don't roll, airplanes don't fly, busses don't run, offices, schools, and stores don't open, no gas is bought, trust me, they'll start to get it......and if all workers participate in this simple act, they can't retaliate....they need us too much and they won't want us to do it again!

December 1, 2005 - National Day of Dignity - Stay Home with Your Family
Let this simple act of defiance be the match that lights the fire to restore dignity to the jobs of working class americans. Send this message to every working class american you know and encourage them to join us in our Rosa Parks moment in history.

[Kent]

Wake up America. Delphi's Steve Miller is a Domestic Industrial Terrorist.

[siggy]

Delphi's Steve Miller is a Domestic Industrial Terrorist.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

[Markos]

I am trying to put together a site for the UAW and would appreciate any feedback: Unofficial UAW Union Site

[Steve]

Nice try power worker, but your inspirational speech didn't take effect, did it?? Maybe that's because most Americans are a little bit more realistic in their attitudes toward work - they stay home, that's a day less wage - that's one less trip to the grocery store, or a few less toys for the kids, whatever . . . Or maybe because they realize that, contrary to your bold statement, the corporations don't, in fact, "need us". That's why jobs are going overseas, and there's a guy right behind me willing to take my job if I don't do it. They only "need" me if I make myself valuable to them - staying home from work to prove a point doesn't exactly make me a hero, does it?? Most people, my boss included, would see me as lazy, incompetent, etc. So take your working class hero crap elsewhere and quit infecting this country with it. I'm as working class as you get, and I see all sorts who talk about how they're underpaid, disrespected - while they sit around at work making $22 per hour. This is the kind of attitude that's ruining this country from the ground up - I'm not going to sit here and defend CEO's and their salaries, but the fact is, their the bosses, and they make the rules. You don't like the rules at your company - go somewhere else - no one's stopping you.

[Ronny]

$75 an hour??? you guys make $75 an hour??? I just learned got that figure from a press release on CNN - well that does it, that officially kills off any sympathy I had for you greedy bastards. $75 for mimimally skilled labor - and you're bitching about the fact that they want to lower it!!!! I can't believe this!! This is basic economics, guys - a company can't stay competitive with that kind of labor costs - you're going to drive Delphi right out of business. - no sympathy at all . . .

[RealWorker]

Go ahead all of you UAW cry babies.Strike. This isn't the 1950's anymore. The rest of the world has caught up and is leaving us behind. You want to strike, go ahead. There are plenty of people making 8 or 9 dollars an hour willing to take 14 dollars an hour to put a tire on an automobile in an air conditioned factory. By the way when the people working at McDonalds go and take your job make sure when they show up to order lunch that you ask them if they want fries with that when your the one now working at McDonalds now making 8 dollars an hour. But at least you showed GM and Delphi that United you Stood. You can't justify $75 an hour for a high school diploma.

[GORDON FRIGGIN GEKKO]

THE POINT IS LADIES AND GENTLEMEN THAT $$GREED$$, FOR LACK OF A BETTER WORD, IS GOOD!! $$GREED$$ IS RIGHT!!, IN ALL OF IT’S FRIGGIN FORMS! $$GREED$$ FOR LIFE, FOR $$MONEY$$, KNOWLEDGE HAS MARKED THE UPWARD SURGE OF MANKIND AND $$GREED$$, YOU MARK MY WORDS WILL NOT ONLY SAVE GM , BUT THAT OTHER MALFUNCTIONING CORPORATION CALLED USA!!! WHY SHOULD UNIONS WRECK A COMPANY? …BECAUSE THERE FRIGGIN WRECKABLE!!!! LET ME CLUE YOU IN, THE FRIGGIN ICE IS MELTING RIGHT UNDERNEATH YOUR FEET,$$GREED$$ IS GOOD!!, $$GREED$$ CAPTURES THE ESSENCE OF THE EVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT!! WHEN THE FIRST WHITE MAN SAILED UP THE HUDSON, IT WASN’T FOR RELIGIOUS FRIGGIN FREEDOM, THE DUTCH CAME TO FRIGGIN EXPLOIT THE NEW WORLD!!! F$$K THE BEAVERSKINS!! THE REAL MONEY IS THE FRIGGIN FUTURE HARBOR AND THE NEW AMSTERDAM REAL ESTATE!!! IT’S CALLED $$CAPITOLISM$$JUST REMEMBER LUNCH IS FOR WIMPS!! AND SO ARE UNION DUES…..

[Marc Brazeau]

Why don't the Gordon Friggin Gekko's of the world applaud when union workers get greedy? Greedy workers are good! When Capitalist seek their self interest you think that's sexy and so do I. But workers seek their self interest I think that's sexy, too.

But greedy capitalists and greedy workers are bad for capitalism.

Because greed isn't good. Self-interest is good. The creative spirit is good. Greed is acquisitiveness detached from self interest and the creative spirit.

When the will to create meets self interest you get the entreprenuerial spirit. You get food on your table, the cure for cancer and an iPod that doesn't break.

Greed results in Enron and thousands of workers who worked hard for years getting screwed out of their retirement (and some people will die because of that when they don't get the medical care that they would have) and millions of rate payers on the west coast being cheated.

Greed results in Union Carbide poisoning thousands in Bhopal.

Greed results in Nestle selling baby formula that kills babies.

Greed results in union militants over-reaching and shutting down operations that they could have helped thrive and thrived in their turn.

Greed is a perversion of capitalism and a perversion of the human spirit.

Einstein didn't work for greed. Edison didn't work for greed. Curie didn't work for greed. Pasteur didn't for greed. Sir Alexander Fleming didn't work for greed. Family farmers don't food for greed. The Brooklyn bridge wasn't built by greed. The Hoover Dam was built by greed. The Apollo moon landing was accomplished through greed.

One aspect of the genius of capitalism is that with WELL REGULATED markets, even greed can be channelled into productive ends. But the best parts of capitalism are not driven by greed. They are driven by the intersection of self-interest and the creative spirit.