[Marxism] Doug Henwood on the UAW

[Waistline2 at aol.com]

In a message dated 5/3/2009 2:18:56 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, 
_dhenwood at panix.com_ (mailto:dhenwood at panix.com)  writes:
More on the  UAW, its murky finances, and its self-screwing:

_http://doughenwood.wordpress.com/2009/05/03/uaw-revisited/_ 
(http://doughenwood.wordpress.com/2009/05/03/uaw-revisited/) 


>> A word on the UAW itself: this is not a poor union. As of 2006, it  had 
assets of almost $1.3 billion, and annual receipts of $304 million. (I wish  
I could provide a link to the UAW’s own financial statements, but if they’
re on  their website, I can’t find them. I had to go to the anti-union site, 
 UnionFacts.com, to find this basic financial info. And I learned that 
there that  the AFL-CIO had successfully lobbied the Obama administration to 
loosen  financial disclosure requirements for unions.) It could have easily 
financed  serious research into a better strategic direction for the auto 
industry than  the idiot management has been able to—cleaner cars, better modes 
of work  organization. Its PAC spent $13 million on campaign contributions 
during the  2008 election cycle; it could have spent a few mil of that on 
campaigning for  national health insurance.

But they didn’t. And now they’re pretty  well screwed.  <<



Comment

Yea, today is  worse than 1979 when Chrysler went belly up. 

The UAW is better  understood if looked at from the standpoint of a 
"business model." The UAW is  all of its members, that to one degree or another 
elect its leaders. The  uppermost leaders of the union are elected on the basis 
of something akin to an  electoral college. That is to say, President 
Gettlefinger and heads of Chrysler,  Ford and General Motors divisions are not 
directly elected by the membership.  The UAW President is elected at the 
Constitutional Convention. Gettlefinger is  akin to a CEO. 

The reason the union has not made national health care a national  social 
cause of the working class, which includes UAW members is its business  model 
and lack of foresight. Bill Gates success in the market was bound up with  
IBM's lack of foresight. Cisco systems success in the market is its 
foresight  and anticipation of new markets. The UAW's uppermost leaders lack 
foresight and  without an abrupt change in its business model have roughly 48 - 96 
months of  life left in it as a significant union in the life of America. 

The  unions lack of foresight is not reducible to a personal problem. 
Gettlefinger is  the person that manifest the social problem of change within the 
union. To the  degree that General Motors could not and did not change its 
business model to  keep pace with a changing market is the same degree to 
which the UAW is stuck in  the old business model of industrial unionism. On 
the other hand the UAW could  not exceed the boundary that is the 
understanding and striving of the working  class as a whole. The working class as a 
whole is being swung around to the need  for a single - government, payer 
health system. Huge sections of the working  class are in the process of 
rejecting anti-communism and anti-socialism.  

The slow and growing rejection of anti-communism in America is  very 
important. The fact of the matter is that no one . . . and I mean no one .  . . 
other than the communists and socialists of all stripes and character, have  
the passion, imagination and fire in their belly to inspire and push our 
working  class. This has been the case since 1890. The era of an anti-communist  
democratic left in America is over. 

The union has to be pushed  from within and especially from without to 
change and such change will involved  splitting and restructuring of the union. 
The odds are such that the UAW will be  destroyed - as it exists, in the 
marketplace along the same lines that General  Motors is being destroyed in the 
domestic market. 

The United  Automobile Workers - UAW, needs to become "Unite All Workers" 
regardless of  industry or economic status. And the union needs to fund a 
party of labor that  can champion issues like national health care. 

Today is a great  time for such a party with the Republican Party in 
absolute decay.  

WL.   


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