[lbo-talk] UAW/GM

MICHAEL YATES mikedjyates at msn.com
Wed Sep 26 09:25:29 PDT 2007


First, it would have been better if the healthcare proposals had been debated inside the union, among the members, for awhile and then a concensus reached before bargaining began. This doesn't happen in the UAW, best I can tell. This is something the union could have done but did not.

Second, if it had rejected the VEBA, it could have demanded that joint management of health care continue. Could have struck over this and struck longer too.

Third,here is what Jerry Tucker and other dissidents say:

"We do not minimize the assault UAW members and all U.S. workers have been under or the challenges our union has faced. But we do respectfully submit that the appropriate counter-proposal to the corporate bailout by way of a VEBA is a UAW demand that 2005's Attachment E "Health Care Reform Letter" be implemented and the corporations become a moving force on the public policy front for the enactment of the current universal, comprehensive, single-payer healthcare legislation contained in H...R. 676, introduced by Michigan Congressman John Conyers. That such a national health care system would serve the auto companies self-interest and level the competitive playing field is well documented. The companies extol the economic value of the Canadian system. Our role as a union, in behalf of our members and the community at large, is not to help them escape their responsibility to their past commitments but to help them convert those commitments to the common good. On that proposal, our members are informed, and they will stand behind you."

Of course, I agree that the union is in a bad spot. In the end, political changes have to be made. In the short term the union should be moving the members toward an ideoligical shift, while making the best deal it can, after democratic internal debate.

Michael Yates



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