UAW Leaders Comment on Flint Metal Fab Strike
11 June 1998
UAW Leaders Comment on Flint Metal Fab Strike
FLINT, Mich., June 10 -- The following is a statement from
the UAW on the Flint Metal Fab strike:
"GM's attempt to deflect responsibility for the strike at Flint Metal Fab
by holding the local union responsible for alleged 'competitiveness' problems
at that facility misses the mark completely," said UAW Vice President Richard
Shoemaker.
"For openers, they are ignoring the fact that GM is currently enjoying
record profits -- since 1993 they have made over $27.5 billion dollars,"
Shoemaker noted, adding, "That looks pretty competitive to me."
"Furthermore," he continued, "if they are not competitive, how do they
justify paying top executives more than $22 million in cash over the past two
years, plus an additional $35 million in stock options and stock appreciation
rights in 1997, or the $5 billion already spent and the additional $4 billion
set aside to buy back stock to increase its value, or the $13 billion they
hoard in cash."
"If there are things in the local agreement that GM doesn't like and they
consider uncompetitive, we remind GM -- you voluntarily entered into that
agreement with Local 659," Shoemaker stated.
"We have a right to expect as do GM's dealers, customers and people in the
community, that when GM enters into an agreement they will abide by that
agreement until its termination," Shoemaker said.
"We will be in national and local negotiations a little more than a year
from now, and as in the past, that's the appropriate time for GM to seek the
changes they say they need," Shoemaker added.
"The record of the UAW membership at Flint Metal Fab is clear," Shoemaker
said, "We have more than held up our part of the agreement."
"The local unions in this region have bent over backwards to improve
quality and efficiency -- even though again and again the consequence
has been closed plants, sold operations and lost jobs because of management
blunders in other areas," said Ruben Burks, who directs UAW Region 1C.
"At Flint Metal Fab for instance, within the past two years the local
union agreed to run all new automated press lines or systems with no
'standards' limits and streamline into one classification all new engine
cradle work," Burks added.
"But," Shoemaker continued, "the corporation has repeatedly reneged on its
side of commitments made to the union and has failed to address the
strikeable issues regarding health and safety, subcontracting and production
standards -- that's why this strike is underway," adding, "breaking and
ignoring contracts is not good business, will never be good business and
should not be condoned."
"In the elite world of GM top management, where executives collect multi-
million dollar salaries and profitable stock options, it's the same old
story -- everyone else is at fault for GM's production problems, especially
workers," Shoemaker said.
"In reality, GM's workers and the community suffer from management's
unwillingness to negotiate and keep their agreements, and their
unwillingness to sit down with the union and the community to discuss how to
improve GM's operations and to maintain good jobs in Flint."
"GM grew to be the highly profitable corporation they are based on the
work of people in communities like Flint," Shoemaker pointed out.
"GM has a responsibility to the workforce here, to the communities here
and to this nation to handle themselves differently than they are and if
they don't these confrontations are going to continue," he continued.
"If GM management wants to prevent this situation from affecting more
production, now is the time to deal with the specific issues at Flint
Metal Fab and Delphi East, not to continue evading problems by claiming that
the union is at fault, or by raising false issues," Shoemaker concluded.