By Tim Higgins Detroit Free Press October 23, 2007
The man at the center of the storm over whether UAW rank-and-file members should approve the national labor agreement with Chrysler LLC says he never intended to oppose the deal, but people who know him say they're not surprised.
Bill Parker, president of Local 1700 and chairman of the UAW's national bargaining committee, has emerged as the first and most vocal opponent of the proposed labor agreement with Chrysler. He argues that the deal lacks enough future product guarantees for factories and that the two-tier wage system it creates will lead to division within the union.
His plant, Sterling Heights Assembly, is to vote Wednesday with several other large union locals, possibly determining the fate of the agreement, which already has been rejected by six union locals representing around 25% of the UAW's 45,000 Chrysler workers.
Local 51, which represents around 1,300 workers at the Mack Engine plants in Detroit, voted Monday to accept the contract, a person from the union said. Voting at Local 1268, a large local that represents workers at an assembly plant in Belvidere, Ill., could happen today.
UAW and Chrysler officials are watching every local closely as the outcome of the voting is far from clear.
People who know Parker describe him much as many people describe UAW President Ron Gettelfinger: hard-working, totally committed and media shy.
In his two-page report issued in opposition to the contract, Parker stressed that his disagreement was not a reflection on UAW Vice President General Holiefield's leadership, and people who know Parker say he is not angling for greater political clout.
"It wasn't my intention to be against it, but the fact that it left open the door for the company to hold each plant hostage ... for future product ... we wanted to put a stop to this," Parker told the Free Press over the weekend. Parker couldn't be reached for further comment Monday, and Gettelfinger and Holiefield did not respond to requests for interviews.
Gettelfinger and Holiefield have said that the union reached the best deal it could and the contract provides job security for workers. Chrysler says it has made commitments to 55 of its 59 UAW-represented facilities, and the UAW says the automaker has identified more than $15 billion in potential investments.
This is not Parker's first labor fight, and he is not alone. Several people from the UAW's past internal battles have re-emerged recently lending their names to opposition and advice to a new generation of dissidents.
"The one-party state is not only weakened internally. These voices are coming out just based on the huge nature of the sell-off of wages and benefits and rights," said Jerry Tucker, former director of the UAW Region 5 in St. Louis and a union dissident who led several battles in the late 1980s.
Parker emerged as a labor activist in the early 1980s when the UAW's then-top leadership began positioning the union into a partnership role with the Detroit automakers, Tucker said.
The last time a national UAW-Chrysler contract was rejected by members was in 1982.
By the late 1980s, Parker was part of a UAW dissident group called the New Directions Movement, which Tucker and others formed, that argued that top UAW leadership had become too close with the automakers and lost touch with its membership. At one point, the group counted as many as 7,000 UAW members among its ranks, Tucker said.
Tucker and other former top UAW leaders issued a statement after the union reached a tentative contract agreement with General Motors Corp., calling on rank-and-file members to reject the proposal. GM workers ratified it Oct. 10, the day Chrysler's agreement, which is similar to GM's, was reached.
Union local leaders elect the committee prior to negotiations, which kicked off officially in July.
"Bill Parker, who is a longtime dissident, was elected mostly because people wanted a more aggressive voice from the council," said Chris Kutalik, editor of Labor Notes. "They wanted somebody who they thought could be tough, and he proved to be pretty tough."
Kutalik added that Parker surely will pay the price for his opposition. "This will come at great cost for him," he said.
Other members of the New Directions group include Lew Moye, shop chairman of Local 110, whose members at the St. Louis minivan plant overwhelmingly rejected the contract over the weekend, Tucker said. Moye, who could not be reached for comment, served as vice-chairman of the UAW's national bargaining committee.
Parker, whose roots are on the assembly line, could be described as low-key and unassuming. "He's a very quiet guy," Kutalik said. "He is not the kind of person who is doing this for the attention."
Bill's older brother Mike Parker, 67, who recently left a job at the Sterling Heights Assembly Plant as part of Chrysler's retirement incentives, described his brother as totally committed to the union cause, coming from a family that had benefited greatly from the gains won by the UAW over the years.
"He's without a doubt the most knowledgeable person anywhere in the international about both the contracts and history of the UAW," the brother said. "He's a workaholic and studies this stuff more than anybody I know."
Bill Parker's wife works at Chrysler's Jefferson North Assembly Plant, where Local 7 rejected the contract Sunday. Prior to the vote, Parker told the Free Press that other locals were rejecting the deal. "Whether it is voted up or voted down, a message is being delivered," he said.
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