Buying UAW-built vehicles matters to our economy

“Dear Mr. Dornbrook:

Thank you for covering the signing of the Missouri Automotive Manufacturing Jobs Act. It’s an important measure for the overall health of American automotive manufacturing and for workers who depend on good jobs at auto plants, their suppliers and other businesses dependent on these plants and the revenue and tax dollars they generate.

We are sorry you were inconvenienced and had to worry about where your car was parked while you covered the signing. The UAW member you encountered in the UAW Local 249 parking lot meant no personal disrespect to you. Accommodating vehicles not made by UAW brothers and sisters is a passionate subject for our members. He and UAW members across the country know that foreign automakers who allow workers to freely join unions in their home countries, while denying that same right to U.S. workers are denying the First Amendment right of American workers to freely organize. Yet foreign automakers accept U.S. taxpayer’s dollars in incentives to build assembly plants in the United States, jeopardizing the future of middle-class workers in the domestic auto industry.

Here are some facts you may want to consider about the domestic auto industry:

• The U.S.-based automakers directly employ nearly 300,000 employees – about two-thirds of all American auto workers.
• Nearly three million U.S. workers are directly or indirectly dependent on the U.S.-based automakers in jobs in the automotive parts industry, automotive research, design and engineering, and in jobs created by money spent on goods and services from the automotive industry and its workers.
• Ford, GM and Chrysler sell less than half the cars bought in the United States, but they buy about two-thirds of the parts made in the United States.
• U.S.-based automakers buy much of the steel, rubber and semiconductors made in the United States; conduct more R&D than any other industry and have invested more than $230 billion in new plants and infrastructure over the past 25 years.
• Investment in R&D has a big impact on whether tomorrow’s best jobs remain in the United States. In 2009, U.S.-based automakers spent $17.5 billion on R&D and 80 cents of every dollar was spent in the United States. U.S.-based automakers do the bulk of their research, design and engineering in the United States, unlike the foreign automakers.
• From 2001 to 2005, the U.S.-based automakers invested more in U.S. plants and infrastructure than all the foreign automakers together invested over the past 25 years. Eighty-six cents of every dollar automakers invested in America came from Ford, GM or Chrysler; the remaining 14 cents came from all the foreign automakers combined.
• Unionization of the U.S.-based automakers by the UAW was a major factor in the creation of the post-war middle class in the United States. Unionization gave workers the right to bargain for fair wages and benefits, giving them the means to buy a house, send their children to college and have a secure retirement. Workers need a voice on the job and a place at the table with employers. Union representation provides that and gives workers a ladder to economic stability. The foreign-owned automakers in the United States are mostly nonunion and resist attempts by workers to organize.
• And quite honestly, all workers’ (union and non-union, manufacturing and service, professional and non-professional) wages and benefits rose when union manufacturing workers raised their wages and benefits through collective bargaining. Health care benefits, pensions, vacations, holidays, and many other benefits and improvements in working conditions were first won in union contracts that later became standard benefits for all workers. And you may have noticed as union workers have been losing some or a portion of these benefits, so have all workers. It is no coincidence.
• According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Camry has 75 percent domestic content. In contrast, Ford produces seven vehicles with 90 percent domestic content. The highest domestic content for any of Toyota’s vehicles is the Sienna, with 85 percent.
• Chrysler, Ford and GM manufacture vehicles with more domestic content across their fleets than the foreign brands. As an example, averaged across fleets, Chrysler’s domestic content is 76 percent; Ford, 64 percent; GM, 64 percent; Honda, 63 percent; Toyota 46 percent and Nissan, 31 percent. If the U.S.-based automakers’ domestic content shrank to the same level as the foreign automakers, it would mean $49 billion less spent in the United States, costing more than 1 million U.S. jobs.
• For the past several years, vehicles made by U.S.-based automakers have consistently been ranked high, if not the highest, in several quality categories in the esteemed, annual J.D. Power vehicle quality studies. In fact, in the 2010 J.D. Power Quality study results, U.S.-based automakers' cars ranked in the top three of 12 categories and ranked first over foreign-company brands in six of the 12 categories.
• In the July, 2010 JD Power Automotive Performance, Execution and Layout Study (APEAL) that measures customer satisfaction, domestic brands ranked higher than foreign brands. Domestic manufacturers won eight of the top 20 ranked vehicles, with Ford winning the highest award in five segments – more than any other manufacturer. Domestic brands had an average score of 787 points on a 1,000-point scale, 13 points higher than the overall score of foreign brands.

Buying a U.S./UAW vehicle does make a difference.

Thank you for your attention to this and for covering issues important to American workers. We look forward to hearing from you in the future.”