[Marxism] Doug Henwood on the UAW

[Waistline2 at aol.com]

Job market, GDP, and the braindeadness of the UAW:

_http://doughenwood.wordp
ress.com/2009/05/01/radio-commentary-april-30-2009/_ 
(http://doughenwood.wordpress.com/2009/05/01/radio-commentary-april-30-2009/) 
 
>> Let’s bracket all the details of this for now and focus on one  thing: 
the United Auto Workers is likely to become a large, and perhaps  controlling 
stockholder in two major industrial enterprises. What will it do  with them?
 
Sad to say, probably nothing. It’s likely that the courts and the  
government will assure that the union’s stockholdings are largely on paper, with  no 
actual rights of ownership to be exercised. Will the UAW complain about 
this  muzzling? Probably not. Which is a sign of just how braindead the 
American labor  movement is.<<
 
Comment
 
With all due respect to Mr. Henwood, he is misinformed. The Union is not  
the shareholder but rather, the company that was established to administer 
the  medical funds is the shareholder. Not the union. This company came about 
as the  result of the 2007 contract. 
 
Again the UAW is not the holder or owner of the stock in question. 
 
*****************
 
On another note; from Pen-L 
 

>> according to the UAW's Gettelfinger (interviewed on US  National Public
Radio this a.m.), it's not the union that will own the  stock  but
instead the fund that controls the medical insurance. Also,  he said
that the stock would be sold soon, because they _had_ to sell it.  <<
-- 
 
Comment

Correct.

A company, with a board of  directors independent of the company and the 
union, was set up as the result of  the 2007 contract talks. The fund was 
established to take medical cost off the  books of the company and to shed all 
the legacy cost of medical.  Thus, all  companies could claim less 
liabilities and less legacy cost. 

There  was opposition to this approach in 2007 because these independent 
boards tend to  reduce medical benefits and invest in ways beneficial to the 
individual board  members. In the 1980 into the 1990 we had this exact same 
problem with Merrill  Lynch putting individuals funds into the worse 
possible, highest cost  investments and could not resolve matters until a decision 
was made to leave the  company. Then rates were slashed 80 - 90%. 

In terms of the stock  now owned by the "medical fund" the plan is to sell 
stock back to the company.  Much of this is just financial manipulation 
designed to please Congress.  

The union is pathetic not because of the concessions forced on it  and 
everyone should be aware that the union is compelled to accept concessions.  

President Gettelfinger is a political bum, buffoon and extremely  ignorant. 

Not because he has signed on to concessions. 
 
Gettelfinger is the last of a generation of union leaders that takes great  
pride in ignorance and glory in telling anyone who will listen that he does 
not  read books. He is the last of a line of union leaders that openly hate 
anything  with an intellectual flavor in the union. 

I am not speaking in  metaphor. 

Gettelfinger won Presidency of the UAW with the backing  of previous 
President Steve Yochich. Steve stated publicly, several times he  never reads 
books and has an inbred hate of intellectuals. Gettelfinger opponent  was Bob 
King, an intellectual and long time head of the UAW organizing division.  King 
is an attorney but came through the Ford division of the UAW working his  
way up from apprentice to journey man. Bob King has the ability to reorient 
the  union, although he does in fact talk a lot. Hell, when he did his 
apprenticeship  under my father he talked to damn much. So what. 

The only other  time the UAW has had a truly literate President was first 
in the form of Leonard  Woodcock - an attorney and then Dough Fraser, a self 
made intellectual in his  own right.  I was no fan of Woodcock or Doug F., 
who brought was the legal  9 hour day, but in a pinch it is best to have 
someone that can read and read  real good . . .ok. 

Union contracts are absolutely complex document  requiring a high degree of 
literacy and experience to unravel.  Behind  every single paragraph is a 
history and letters of understanding  - legal  documents, that clarify the 
detailed meaning of each paragraph. The day of the  "hard nose" beefy armed 
militant union leader, with "big balls" and gumption  died in the late 1960's 
and early 1970s. 

Gettelfinger comes from  outside the historical center of industrial 
conflict, and is akin to a "country  boy" (inside the union the word used is 
"hillbilly") making it big in the union  and being to thankful to the company, 
viewing the benefits auto workers have  fought for as a gift from the company 
and God. "The company and God" is not  metaphor. 

Gettelfinger is scared to march on anyone or anything  because he believes 
in God and country first, at the expense of the workers he  suppose to 
represent. If the workers read he knows that sooner or later they are  going to 
read the Communist Manifesto. 

Really.  

Against the advice of leading members of the union, Gettelfinger  insisted 
on going to Washington to sit besides the CEO's of GM, Ford and  Chrysler. 
This rat fink fuck knows good and well we never invite ourselves to  sit with 
the company before a Congressional committee. Our policy for the past  50 
years has been without a court order, enforced by the state, we appear before 
 no ones inquiry and  "you can go straight to hell." 

We did  not steal or mismanage any company funds or overpay CEO's or drive 
Chrysler GM  into the ground. In fact GM cries crocodile tears over health 
cost and for the  past 20 years said nothing about national health care 
because the auto companies  had established their own profit making health care 
centers and networks.  

Why did Gettelfinger to Washington to sit besides the corporate  CEO's? 

'Cause he felt it "was the right thing to do?"  

"Well, why do you feel like that brother; after all no one is  sending the 
police or army and none of us represent or speak for the company?"  

"Cause I want to." 

That's bullshit and it weakened  our hand and made is so the union was 
blocked from presenting the issue  independent of the company. The first 
approach is always to demand the company  open it books. How can the company pay 
out millions in CEO bonuses and not fund  pensions and health care 100%?  
Opening the books is simply good politics,  and not revolutionary at all.  

Gettelfinger is ignorant and  stupid in the most personal meaning. The 
union movement and the working class is  nothing without its intellectual 
detachment, which comes in all political  flavors.  

Getting beat up and forced to accept concession is  neither ignorant or 
pathetic. 

Groveling and genuflecting to the  very people that are swindling us out of 
our accumulated medical and pension  funds and doing everything in their 
power to literally steal and under fund  pensions, makes Mr. Gettelfinger a 
political bum. One does not have to be  socialist or a communist to be a 
decent union leader. One does have to learn how  to read and comprehend documents 
and the moment. 

The  anti-intellectualism of the union pushes us into destruction. 

WL.  





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