That Was Quick

The first strike of GM in 37 years is over in two days.

Details of the proposed contract were sketchy, but GM and the UAW confirmed that it would create a trust fund financed by GM and run by the union that would administer healthcare benefits for retired GM workers.

GM's primary goal in the talks was to erase a $25-an-hour disparity in labor costs between the Detroit automakers and Japanese companies such as Toyota Motor Corp., which have non-union workers at U.S. plants.

GM, Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler have a combined $90.5 billion in unfunded retiree healthcare obligations on their books. GM reportedly will be able to shift about $36 billion of its $50 billion in retiree healthcare obligations into the trust fund.

The proposed contract also creates a two-tier wage scale, which would establish a lower pay scale for new workers hired into non-manufacturing jobs, such as janitorial and landscaping positions.

In return, the UAW won concessions on job security, a key bargaining point that was largely responsible for prompting the union to abruptly call a strike Monday.

Doesn't sound all that great to me, but the gun was pointed squarely at the UAW's head. "Accept this or we'll move all of our plants" seemed to be the choice. However, moving all of that healthcare legacy costs into the union trust fund may increase portability, if some partnerships with other unions can be made. That's something to look at for the future.

Take A Hint, Corporate America

This really is reason #1 why universal health care is so important, not just for the lives of our citizens but for the economic health of our country. Unless we want a completely denuded manufacturing base, as oppposed to the partial one we have now, we simply have to take health care out of the labor costs for anybody who wants to build something in America. The UAW is on strike because GM wants to drastically reduce their health care costs, which are more than the STEEL they use to make the cars. This is something Andy Stern talks about all the time, that $1,500 on the list price of every car made in the USA is from health care costs. So you would think that these executives would love the idea of severing the employer/health care relationship that is almost entirely unique to the US at this point.

GM says it needs to cut costs. Perhaps it would like to work with the Democrats and the Unions to get universal health insurance. It would be good for their workers, good for the country and good for the bottom line.

This is precisely why I'm skeptical of any health care plan which retains the employer mandate in any way. It's extremely dangerous to be a country unable to produce any goods at an affordable enough price to compete in the marketplace. You would think you'd want the military, for example to be provided with guns and transport vehicles from the country of origin. And so pushing for universal health insurance that's NOT on an employer model would be beneficial for corporations as well as citizens, and the increased economic activity would more than pay for it. The only people it wouldn't help are Republicans, who have no interest in providing anyone who needs it with health care.

And fittingly, it takes the labor movement to drive this issue home, as well as the larger point that prosperity and a strong working class go hand in hand.

But as critical of an issue as health insurance is, this strike is about something even bigger. It's about whether we're going to have a middle class in this country. The UAW was at the heart of the creation of what we know as the American middle class -- more than any other force in society, it institutionalized the idea that workers should be entitled to health care, vacation, and a secure and comfortable retirement. Before the rise of the UAW, blue-collar workers had no hope of securing their family and their future, and lived in constant fear of injury or layoff, with no prospect of anything resebling "retirement." The UAW changed that. The UAW made sure that the workers at the base of the postwar boom got their share. The UAW made it possible for a man like my grandfather, a brilliant guy from the Irish ghetto in Buffalo who never had the opportunity to study past high school, to send every single one of his kids to college. And the victories won by the UAW bore fruit well beyond the homes of their members -- because of the size and importance of the union, every UAW contract had a massive ripple effect. Employers in other industries -- even non-union employers -- had to raise their standards to attract employees. In short, the UAW allowed workers to get a taste of a life where leisure was possible, where relaxation and economic security were something that could be earned with hard work, and where their labor was treated with honor and dignity.

This is a society we hardly recognize today. This strike could be a turning point where we can get it back.