Soldiers Of Solidarity No.8
“CULTURAL CHANGE”
We are trying to make sure we have the best talent possible. You earn your stripes by getting your numbers.” ---- Richard
Wagoner March 19, 2002 Oakland Press
In this article Wagoner talks about GM taking steps to revamp its internal culture. Getting the numbers that’s what
it’s all about. The CEO at GM makes this very clear. Our UAW/GM Joint agreement is their guiding factor. The Global
Manufacturing System’s (GMS) vision is to have a common manufacturing system (Standardization). We are in partnership
with their business plan. We are no longer unionists, we are business associates.
“The UAW/GM Quality network Objectives have been developed to assist UAW –represented GM facilities in creating
an organizational environment that results in attaining excellence in employee Health and Safety, Quality of products, processes,
services, relationships, operational effectiveness, increase market share and enhance job security.” ---Team Coordinator/Team
Manager Training Detroit /Hamtramck UAW Local 22 pg. 6-1
In other words;
The UAW/GM Quality network Objectives have been developed
GM will dictate their business plans to our International Reps
to assist UAW –represented GM facilities
who will mandate our Local ELECTED representatives
in creating an organizational environment to socially engineer us into business associates
that results in attaining excellence…
in getting the corporate numbers that earn their stripes.
The “Cultural Changes” training courses bottom line is to standardize the corporation to get numbers. These numbers
are a vast supply of knowledge for management to use. They network among each other in solving problems to save time, manpower
and money. There’s nothing wrong with standardization. Many successful businesses do it, for example McDonald’s.
We as a union should do the same. We need to network with other locals and help standardize our gains. A case in point is
Local 22’s Memorandum of Understanding on Placement of Restricted Employees. This is a good piece of language. Other
Locals could benefit from this. We also need to network among each other from group to group, department to department. We
need to bring back a cultural change of our own, “SOLIDARITY”.
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