JN Ulav SISHELP Lf-4--Ns

JN ulaV SISHELP lf-4--Ns PNTE id CM ^Number 137/) January 1985 V | INTERVIEW I DOUGLAS FRASER O~~~~~~~~~ The are from an interview with V O following exerpts Workers, conducted during his recent visit to the Berkeley campus. L. | LCR: The first thing we would like to ask is what are your general impressions on the future of UAW and what kinds of efforts do you think the new leadership can make to combat the decline in IUn Imembership due to automation and other structural factors? DF: I think perhaps in terms of the workforce itself, the worst is over. As late as 1979, the membership in our union was 1.5 million, and now in the last year or so it's about 1.1 million. We'll never be Z back to 1978-79, not only because of the decline in the auto industry, but we also have a highly organized agricultural implement industry that is probably in a state of permanent decline more severe than auto. In the auto industry you might have a bit more decline, but not as dramatic as a lot of people say it is going to be. On the other hand I think progress can be made by conducting organizing drives in non- traditional areas: among white-collar workers in industry, in universities where we've had some success and among other service employees. The UAW, along with any other institution, has to have the ability to change with times and events. I'm not as pessimistic about the future as other people are. I have no way of knowing what the Reagan administration is going to do in terms of imports, but I think there are 0) |significant moves being made by the Japanese to put some capital where their market is. To give some a zexamples: the merger between Toyota and GM, Nissan building a plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, and Honda O, iO| building a plant making automobiles in Marysville, Ohio. I think we should have constant pressure on the i Japanese to do more of that. And as they make investment here, of course, its going to create jobs here. We don't have Honda and Nissan organized, but I think eventually we will. So the future size of our = j union is dependent on the location of new capital and the expansion of the market in the United States. It doesn't necessarily follow that you're going to lose jobs in absolute numbers as you introduce robots. -> = fY |You will if the market remains stagnant, but if you have growth in the marketplace, it is quite possible to | < have the jobs even with the introduction of new technology. C IU,| LCR: You talked about the UAW organizing workers who are not in the auto or farm implement Ito *I industries. They typically have lower wages than auto workers. How might large numbers of lower wage w 0 |workers in the UA W effect the balance ofpower within the union? |4 C9 = |DF: In organizing, for the UAW to be attractive to non-auto workers, we have to assure them that the z E structure will be established so they can make their own decisions. It is very difficult to attract people ID m z | who view our organization as being completely dominated by the blue-collar workers. You have to assure _ the people you want to organize that they can formulate their own collective bargaining demands based m upon their own problems. On the flip side of that, there's no realistic hope that we can deliver for them i = ^ | the same kind of wages and fringe benefits that we have in auto. In auto, we have high wages and benefits ^ because historically we have been dealing with a very profitable, very productive industry. And LA that's 0 hard to duplicate. So you've got to be careful about promising public sector workers that if they join the 1 | UAW they'll immediately get auto workers' wages. Also, you've got to tell them that they will not be 1~_ IX D governed by the decisions of the blue collar workers. | LCR: We want to ask you what you think of Owen Bieber, the new president of the UA W, and the job > UJI he's done negotiating the current contract. lZS DF: I think the 1984 negotiations were conducted very well by Owen Bieber and his colleagues. They had in hand the direction that the membership wanted to take. They had an extensive study made of t 9 |41\ rank and file attitudes, and the study results were basically what their intuition told them. The member- IBMship, given the depression that the industry experienced in 1980-82, wanted the highest priority to be job security and not wages. And so this agreement was fashioned to meet that desire. This agreement does 4,t w 7 give auto workers and their families a greater measure of job security than any agreement we've ever ..... V vnegotiated. _ /~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~-1-TMNNPII--119 9 LCR: Is the billion dollar retraining and income guarantee fund the main part of the job security arrangement? DF: It's the billion dollar guarantee, and that will go a long, long way. People do a sort of arithmetic exercise and they say "What does a billion dollars mean in terms of paying the salary of x number of workers?" What they overlook is that while all this is going on there are attritional openings through retirement, quits, etc. so the billion dollars does go a long way. And one other thing that has received very little notice is a 100 million dollar fund that is set aside in the contract for new ventures. Its an important step and it relates to things like membership on the Chrysler board and the principle of the workers, through their representatives, having a greater voice in the decision-making process. Its going to be a joint decision with the union as to what kinds of investments should be made. Generally speaking, it is intended to make investments in ventures in communities where auto plants are located and it will serve a couple of purposes. Number one, it will generate jobs for people who perhaps no longer have jobs in the auto industry because of the decline in sales. But more importantly for an area like Detroit or the whole state of Michigan, this program will result in the diversification of the economy that is so desperately needed. LCR: Would you evaluate "cooperative" labor management agreements? Will they have a future impact on the relationship between management and labor in your industry? Or do you think as profits continue to increase, that management will go back to the fortress mentality that the auto companies have historically exhibited? DF: First, the quality of work life movement doesn't move uniformly across the system, because its a grassroots shop floor movement. It's critical the way you structure and design the program. It has to be mutually entered into, and both the union and the company have to accept it and try it out. I've seen times where you couldn't get it off the ground, where the plant manager wonders what his role will be in the scheme of things if all this authority in decision making is given to someone else. On the other hand the union guy is worrying that if this thing works, his role will disappear because there won't be any more grievances. There will always be grievances. But let's look at the quality of work life agreements that are in place, structured properly and adopted by both sides. I think that this is a movement that is irreversible, because fundamentally what it does is democratize the workplace. It gives the worker a meaningful voice in the way the work is organized. Of equal importance, the company that enters into a quality of work life program in good faith has to be saying that they finally realize what I knew 50 years ago, that the men and women who work in the shop are intelligent and they are innovative and have a contribution to make if you let them make that contribution. So from the company side, what they get out of it is improved quality, less absenteeism, lower grievance load and increased productivity. There- fore I would argue that even as you return to increased profits and prosperity, the company won't want to change it because they get these benefits. The union won't want to change because there is something insidious about democracy. Once people experience it and practice it they won't give it up. So I think the movement is going to go forward. An awful lot depends on the committment of the leaders in both the company and the union. LCR: Concerning the Toyota-GM plant, some former workers aren't going to be hired back, and it was a tough negotiation since Toyota wasn't going to accept them back at their old seniority. If these joint venture agreements continue to be approved in the future, how is that going to affect the union? DF- First of all, you have to look at the background in that case, and I was president when that started. They retained the services of Bill Usury, the former Secretary of Labor, to work with GM and Toyota and help fashion the agreement. Their original position was that they weren't going to hire any- body back.

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