| Gettlefinger Predicts the Future
Here's the word from UAW Chief Ron Gettlefinger, in a July 2003 speech to the National Conference of the Association of Labor Relations Agencies at the Detroit Marriott Renaissance Center.
I'm sure our friends at GM, Ford, Daimler-Chrysler, and Delphi will be glad to know just how accurate his future predictions can be:
The one thing I will say about the UAW’s relationship with the domestic automakers -- or as we refer to them, the Big Three, is that our relationship shows just how well a partnership between an employer and a union can work.
We see the Big Three continue to make gains in quality and productivity and we are proud to say that they are the benchmark when it comes to safety in the automobile industry. All of this has been accomplished because of -- not in spite of -- the partnership between those companies and the UAW.
In fact, it’s difficult for us to understand why many labor relations professionals, attorneys and others, who represent corporate interests, spend so much time and energy trying to figure out how employers can avoid unions.
Instead, it seems to us that the American economy, and certainly the American workforce, would be much better off if all that energy, time and money could be focused on figuring out how other sectors of the economy could duplicate the successful partnership that now exists between the UAW and the Big Three automakers. |
