Online NewsHour: An Update on the GM Strike -- June 26, 1998

WRENCH IN THE WORKS

June 26, 1998

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript

As the United Auto Workers' strike against General Motors continues, workers begin to wonder how much longer their days on the picket lines will last.
ROD MINOTT: For only the second time in his 28 years at General Motors Max Fairchild is walking a picket line. Like other family members before him Fairchild has been a union worker at GM all his adult life. He say's it's provided a good living, but one he fears is about to come to an end.
MAX FAIRCHILD, Auto Worker: Our issues here is that we're just fightin' for what we already had. We had contracts with General Motors, you know, and they're wanting to take jobs out of here and taking 'em other places. And all we're trying to do is just hang on to what we got. We're trying to keep these $18 an hour jobs from going out, because if we had to go somewhere else, they're going to be $8 an hour jobs.
ROD MINOTT: Fairchild and 3400 other workers at this metal stamping plant in Flint walked out on the job on June 5th. Fifty-eight hundred other workers at a GM parts plant across town joined them in the strike a week later. They say they want GM to stop transferring jobs to outside, non-union shops. Over the past 20 years GM has cut the work force in Flint by more than 50 percent, while greatly expanding production at plants in Mexico and overseas. Officials at General Motors argue they have to send work to these plants to stay competitive in a global economy since they say the plants in Flint are some of the most inefficient in the company.
They blame the lost productivity and restrictive union work rules, like having to pay some workers a full day's pay for a half day of work. Although GM declined the NewsHour's request for an on-camera interview, Chairman Jack Smith had this to say during a commencement speech at Kettering University last week.
JACK SMITH, Chairman, General Motors: Change is inevitable and unavoidable, even more in Flint. Today there is an extremely competitive global market that has put pressure on every company to move faster and more efficiently than it ever has before, including General Motors. While General Motors has made significant strives to become more efficient and move faster, we have to continue to make progress to ensure that we keep our company strong and our people working.
ROD MINOTT: While auto worker across the country have expressed frustration at lost jobs due to out-sourcing, it's not surprising that it's in Flint where the greatest tension has been felt. Flint is the birthplace of both the United Auto Workers Union, or UAW, and General Motors. Sixty-two years ago union activists staged a sit-down strike, which sparked violent confrontations with police but ultimately forced GM to negotiate with a trade union. The success of that strike helped bring thousands of new workers across the country into the UAW.
NEWSREEL SPOKESMAN: And into the spacious luggage compartment with the bags--
ROD MINOTT: In the 1940's and 50's, when the car was king, so too was the UAW. Auto jobs promised wages and benefits that were among the best anywhere. Ironically, it's the fact that auto workers have traditionally made a good wage which may prevent the UAW from receiving much sympathy from the public during this strike. Even Max Fairchild is concerned that people have the wrong idea about what the walkout is all about.
MAX FAIRCHILD: I hear statements that we make an ungodly amount of money and just quoted not long ago, I was making $69,000 a year, and I've worked here 28 years and never made that. I don't think a lot of them understand. You know, they think that maybe we're just out here, you know, we're fighting for another 25 cent raise or something. Well, no, we're not, you know, we're not fighting for that. We're just fighting to keep our jobs and keep the jobs around here.
ROD MINOTT: But not everyone is convinced that these jobs can stay in Flint. Mayor Woodruff Stanley says he's been working to wean the city from its dependence on GM jobs during his seven years in office.
MAYOR WOODROW STANLEY, Flint, Michigan: It is not just important, it's imperative. It's an imperative for our community that we embrace and that we aggressively go after other opportunities, other opportunities that expand our economy, that make us less dependent on General Motors.
ROD MINOTT: GM used to make up 95 percent of the Flint economy. But that was when GM dominated the automobile market. As GM's fortunes have declined, so have Flint's. Economists predict that GM will soon make up only 30 percent of the city's economy. Hard times are evident in the closed businesses that line Saginaw Street, the main commercial district in the city. But Mayor Stanley says that's starting to change. There are new jobs in education and the medical field, jobs that are often non-union.
MAYOR WOODRUFF STANLEY: Today the world culture has changed in terms of how you compete, and so we have to change, and that's sort of the down side of it. It's great when things are going well. If you are one industry in a one-company town and things are going great, no one cares about sort of the under-side to this equation. When things are not going so well, we start to re-examine ourselves, we start to question whether or not we should have moved to diversify sooner.
ROD MINOTT: The two strikes in Flint have wide implications far beyond the city's borders. Since the two plants produce parts made for nearly all GM vehicles, the ripple effect has caused almost all of GM's factories to shut down. Some 140,000 employees have been laid off. Sheila Dallas works in the GM plant in Grand Rapids and is president of her local. She found out she was laid off just hours before joining her UAW colleagues on the picket line in Flint. She says the Flint strikers are waging a fight that all union members face.
SHEILA DALLAS, Auto Worker: This is not about money. This is about America's future. You know, if there's not good middle class paying jobs, you know, where's the tax base going to come from? I mean, that's basically bottom line. We've got to have a middle class. And I guess we're fighting for American jobs.
DAN KRUGER, Michigan State University: (teaching)The union is a political institution.
ROD MINOTT: Dan Kruger teaches labor relations at Michigan State University. He says that the real reason for the strike isn't so much about preserving jobs; it's about preserving the UAW, itself.
DAN KRUGER, Michigan State University: There are two kinds of strikes. This happens to be what I call a membership strike. We're not talking about improving the wages and fringe benefit of the workers. What we're talking about is the membership of the UAW. And these workers in Flint who are on strike feel that their union is being threatened and, therefore, we're having this strike that is literally paralyzing General Motors and having a rippling effect that touches almost every aspect of American society.
ROD MINOTT: Since auto makers began outsourcing work to non-union plants, union membership has been cut in half. The members who remain are getting older. Of the 760,000 remaining UAW members, over 500,000 of them are retirees. Union officials meeting in Los Vegas all week have said the strikes in Flint may signal the beginning of a new surge in activity by the UAW and a new wave of strikes.
Professor Kruger says threatening to expand the strikes is not the way to create more union jobs. He says, rather than antagonizing GM, the union needs to try to work with the auto maker to boost its market share back up from its current low 30 percent.
DAN KRUGER: Let's declare the war over and go back to making cars, and let's stop the idea we can provide jobs for our children. And maybe we're smart enough and clever enough and expand the market back to 50 for General Motors, where we'll have employment opportunities for our kids, our grandchildren, or whoever you want to have a job at General Motors, but first comes expanding the market and selling automobiles. And a strike doesn't do it.
ROD MINOTT: But union members say they are the ones who have been trying to cooperate all along.
MAX FAIRCHILD: We've given concessions. I haven't had a raise in quite a while, I mean, a significant raise, because we ain't asked for one at the UAW. We're trying to be competitive, but we also got to live.
ROD MINOTT: Max Fairchild and his fellow strikers say they saved up money in case the strike stretches through the summer. Analysts say statewide workers and suppliers are losing about $12 million a day, while a complete shutdown of GM could cost the auto giant as much as $500 million a week.

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