|
Walter Reuther is the most dangerous man in Detroit because no one is more
skillful in bringing about the revolution without seeming to disturb the existing forms of society.
George Romney, Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, 1945”
Walter Reuther was a man ahead of his time and a man that understood the time he lived in. The earlier days of Walter Reuthers’s
struggles with General Motors are similar to ours. Today’s struggles of solidarity, shop floor turmoil, and whipsawing,
are the same struggles that Walter Reuther faced during the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. In his rise to UAW
President Walter Reuther’s biggest obstacle was GM. Being the largest employer of the auto industry, General Motors
prided themselves in their system of management. Their hard line and resources restrained any labor movement against them.
General Motor’s philosophy is still the same today, but because of the skillful ingenuity of Walter Reuther the autoworker
of then and today enjoy the protection and the benefits of the UAW. Walter Reuther understood that management and labor had
“common things”, but those “common things” should not compromise the dignity of the worker. He had
always thought there should be a “mutuality” between labor and management. He never would have let this get so
one-sided. Let’s examine some of those struggles with GM .
“SOLIDARITY FOREVER”
The Wagner Act of 1935 (National Labor Relation Act) which guaranteed the workers right to organize and bargain collectively,
helped define the politics of Walter Reuther. Many unions tried to established themselves, AFL, CIO, MESA, etc… this
caused disorder ( there could be two or three unions representing different groups of workers at the same plant). This disorder
was used by the Companies to play the unions against each other. This instability caused apprehension among the workers to
sign membership cards. It wasn’t until 1937 that the floodgates opened for membershto the UAW. The Flint sit-down strike
caused GM to recognize the UAW as their sole bargaining agent. “The contract language guaranteed a tough struggle ahead,
but the announcement of the GM agreement was taken as an enormous victory for the union. The Flint sit downers marched out
of Fisher Body no. 1 to the cheers of thousands of supporters and strains of Solidarity Forever… soon the tens of thousands
of fence sitters poured into the Flint amalgamated Local 156”.
Although this was not part of Walter Reuther’s Local he and his brother orchestrated this victory. Walter Reuther in
support of the Flint Sit-Downers provided carloads of members to Flint while he lead sit down strikes at the Fleetwood and
Cadillac plants. This settlement along with the Supreme Court endorsement of the constitutionality of the Wagner Act caused
a massive movement for membership in the Union. As President of the West Side Local 174 (in this area of Detroit) Walter Reuther
organized this UAW amalgamated Local to be one of the largest and highly funded autonomous Locals. In 1939 Walter Reuther
became the President of the unions General Motors Department. Even though this Contract with GM was a victory for the Union
it did not change GM’s attitude toward the union. GM was big and they knew it. GM “generated a set of accounting
devices…spread over the entire business cycle”. And because of this “GM turned a profit during every year
of the Great Depression, and despite the sit-down strike of early 1937, the corporation would build more cars and make more
money in that turbulent year than in any since 1928. During this time union solidarity grew, but GM’s philosophy remained
the same.
Shop Floor Turmoil
The 1937 sit-down strike committed GM to negotiate on a national basis, “a more elaborate collective bargaining agreement
covering the abolition of piece work, the establishment of a seniority system and shop grievance handling structure”,
but tuff times were still ahead. Union enthusiasm caused 170 wildcats or slowdowns between February and June of 1937. GM naturally
claimed that the contract was broken. Walter Reuther in the days just before the 1940 UAW/GM contract recognized that if the
UAW’s goals to sole recognition from the company, a guaranteed annual wage based on a thirty-two hour work week, complete
recognition of the shop steward system and joint control of production standards, he needed to control the shop floor. The
only way that this could be done was to show the corporation that the UAW was a disciplined, responsible organization and
“that we not only had power, but power under control”. So, wildcat strikes were out. After 435 strikes since
1937 GM recognized the logic of the UAW’s demand for sole recognition. In April of 1940 after a successful skilled trade
(tool room) strike, the UAW petitioned the Nation Labor Relation Board for a corporation wide election vote, and the Union
won sole representation of GM. The logic of sole representation did not convert GM’s philosophy toward labor. GM ran
the Corporation by “management by policy- to undercut shop steward power and keep union influence well contained”.
General Motors in keeping with this philosophy put their supervisors on salary, and boosted their pay 25%. At the General
Motors Institute they were trained in industrial psychology and labor reduction. GM’s discipline policy was “guilty
until proven innocent” and were determined to maintain control of the shop floor and maintain the authority of the foremen.
GM saw the union’s effort to demoralize the foremen as an assault on “basic management prerogatives. Walter Reuther
knew that the hard line tactics with GM would not work for long. With a change in GM’s top management the 1940 agreement
was reached. What now is Paragraph 8 & 78 was established in this agreement. GM officials remarked if the UAW ever tried
to alter these words that the “struggle would have to be waged by nothing less that “revolutionary means”.
The Union established stability of the shop steward system and the grievance arbitration under a permanent umpire. Walter
Reuther believed that the workers should have a say in the pace of production and standards, and that grievances should be
worked out at the point of production. This was a historical agreement. It was give and take on both sides.
Whipsawing
GM was always convinced that it could control the Union. Another tactic used was and still is whipsawing. It became a GM policy
to have “at least three sources of supply for every component needed” to off-set the strikes. For every GM facility
in which the UAW had a strong foothold, the corporation built, expanded or retooled another factory making the identical part.
GM never lost production that way, and they even made a profit during the years after the Great Depression.
What Now?
GM’s philosophy has not changed. We see the results of their philosophy in the reduction of jobs, and the shutting down
of plants. They have a shop floor tactic of not recognizing the committeeperson and using the work group manager as a Gestapo
like puppet. Guilty until proven innocent is how they control the floor. They by-pass the first step of the grievance procedure,
letting the grievance go fruitlessly to a higher step. This causes bitterness frustration, which affects the morale of the
worker and the quality of the product, the “common thing” in which all our jobs depend upon. By not empowering
the work group manager to deal with the problems at the point of production or with individuals, they abuse their greatest
resource, us. So what now? How do we attack this philosophy?
Walter Reuther was a craftsman. He put his all into his work. He believed that the control of the product and the process
should be a mutual thing. The contract we have today is similar to his vision but it is to one sided. Paragraph 8 states,
“ the products to be manufactured, the locations of the plants, the schedules of production, the methods, processes
and means of manufacturing are solely and exclusively the responsibility of the Corporation”.
Management wants control and paragraph 8 is constantly quoted as to the reason management does things. This is the point we
need to work on. In our National contract there is language to support that the UAW (us) should also have a say in the processes,
methods etc…. “It is recognized that the point where product design, technology, process and materials come together
and must work in harmony is at the worker/supervisor level in the organization. High quality products result from a well
managed process that motivates employees to work together within a spirit of teamwork to continuously improve customer satisfaction.”
UAW/GM National Contract 1996 page.568 How can there be harmony or a spirit of teamwork when GM’s philosophy is still
the same after all these years. How can we build a “spirit of cooperation” and of “trust and respect”
when for example, the ANDON system is far from being implemented as was presented to us in the training we had a few months
ago. When Management does not implement the processes which are to insure quality, shouldn’t they be penalized? Shouldn’t
they give up there right to manage? Isn’t this effecting our JOB SECURITY? Management instead points the finger at us
(UAW membership). They are constantly blaming the rank and file for poor quality when in fact it is through their mismanagement
of the processes and of the people that creates an environment which produces poor quality . Then they use this as an excuse
to whipsaw plants. Was poor quality the reason 140 jobs left our Local 22 sister plant to go to Flint? Was poor quality the
reason why 1400 jobs are leaving Lake Orion and we are building the Le Sabre (Or is it UAW militancy). This is just plain
whipsawing and union busting. We need to make management accountable to implement the agreement. We cannot let management
use the poor excuse of bad quality to justify layoffs, plant closings and whipsawing, when it is their fault. Walter Reuther
used the laws, politics, created solidarity, and a process to keep management responsible,. We need to further his vision,
even if we have to use
“REVOLUTIONARY MEANS”.
REVOLUTION!!!!
Communicating, Educating, and
Participating in our Union,
Miguel X. Chavarria
Dept. 11-17
|
