UAW's stubbornness hurts Michigan's future

Gettelfinger insists union has given up enough, but more is needed

Detroit News October 13, 2006

Neither the United Auto Workers nor its president, Ron Gettelfinger, seems to care much about Michigan's future. If they did, they would be working harder to sell the state to prospective businesses rather than giving them reasons to avoid it.

Gettelfinger, who is clearly posturing for the upcoming contract talks with the Big Three automakers, says the UAW won't accept any further cuts at Delphi Corp. and will strike the bankrupt company if it asks a judge to void its contract. He insists that the jobs bank, which pays thousands of workers not to work, won't be eliminated in the next contract.

And he refuses to negotiate health care concessions with the Chrysler Group, despite a projected loss this year of $1.2 billion.

That may embolden union auto workers, who have seen their ranks decimated, but it doesn't help the state. Instead, it tells prospective employers that if they set up shop here, they'll have to battle industrial-era attitudes and labor leaders who still think businesses can afford expensive job benefits without reform.

Union membership in Michigan already is down to 20.5 percent and falling among all its workers. Gettelfinger's antics won't stave off that decline and may accelerate it because fewer companies will come here, giving the UAW fewer opportunities to organize new workers.

No company wants to locate in a state whose labor leaders are hostile to every action of management, regardless of the economic situation the company faces.

The UAW is as much to blame for the excessive costs the auto companies and their suppliers face as is management, which hasn't adjusted to market forces fast enough.

The jobs bank (paying laid-off workers nearly full pay), 30-and-out retirement policies and fully paid health care benefits should have been adjusted years ago but remain because the UAW won't budge and management gives in to maintain short-term labor peace.

Michigan is paying the price and Gettelfinger and other labor leaders who refuse to acknowledge the changing global economy need to pull their collective heads out of the sand. So do the auto executives. If the jobs bank and other auto industry-busting benefits endure, the companies don't deserve to survive.

Let's hope for the state's sake that doesn't happen. But it will unless everyone -- including Gettelfinger and the UAW -- make fundamental and lasting changes to alter Michigan's fortunes.