Bargaining Goals of
Skilled Trades Solidified

Photo: Lee Zaichick

“Right now there is nothing more important than protecting the right to hold good UAW jobs that support our members and their families’ standard of living. All of us must demand loyalty to the working people of this country from our elected representatives.” — Local 469 President Michael Bink, Milwaukee, Region 4.

Following lengthy discussions and brisk debates, the delegates to the International Skilled Trades Conference on Collective Bargaining overwhelmingly adopted 20 resolutions addressing major issues of importance to the trades.

Highlights and excerpts from some of the key resolutions are:

Protection of Trades

Many companies are attempting to carve work out of one trade and assign it to others, both skilled and nonskilled. This would erode skills, undermine job security and jeopardize safety. These aggressive attempts by management must be prohibited with language in each UAW contract.

Our skilled-trades members must demand continuous training programs to increase our skills, not dilute them. Lean, agile manufacturing requires more skilled-trades workers, not fewer.

In many contracts, basic trade combinations have been established. Reversing this trend will be difficult, but it must be done. In previous years, the UAW International Skilled Trades Advisory Committee (ISTAC) unanimously recommended to the UAW International Executive Board (IEB) that it adopt a policy resisting the consolidation of any of the UAW-recognized apprenticeable trades. The IEB has unanimously approved this policy.

Larry Erickson, chair of Local 160 in Region 1, supported the resolution, but reminded delegates not to harm the skilled-trades members whose jobs have been combined by management.

“As we go forward, let’s be careful not to hurt the members who are currently there, and fix what has been done in the past.”

Advancing Technology

UAW members understand that failing to invest in new technology can doom a work site to closure or consign it to dead-end jobs. Automation that decreases the need for production workers increases the demand for skilled-trades workers. New technology not only requires new skills, but often much higher skills.

Collective-bargaining agreements must ensure that employers do not compromise the health and safety of workers with the introduction of advanced technology systems.

Our members should not learn about their employers’ plans to invest in new technology the day it is installed. Many UAW agreements already include clauses or letters that require advance notice and consultation. We must negotiate such language where it does not , and strengthen it where it does.

“I particularly like the language requiring training of our skilled-trades workers prior to the employer purchasing an equipment and software vendor contract, as well as prohibiting vendors from controlling software changes or modifications,” said Shawn Fain, a delegate from Local 1166 in Kokomo, Ind., Region 3.

Trade Policy

During the last 30 years, the manufacturing base of the United States has steadily eroded. The net result has been the loss of hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs, and lower wages and benefits in the jobs that remain. Workers abroad do not benefit from the multinational corporations’ low-wage strategy, either. In many countries, buying power is limited by government and employer repression of independent unions.

NAFTA led to an explosion in our automotive trade deficit with Mexico and the loss of thousands of jobs in this sector. The overall U.S. trade deficit with China has mushroomed and is expected to get worse.

The Bush administration wants a blank check to negotiate an expansion of NAFTA-style trade agreements to cover the rest of South and Central America and other areas of the globe. But these efforts do not include protections for workers’ rights and the environment, or against import surges that threaten the jobs of American workers.

The UAW will continue to urge rejection this dangerous fast-track legislation. We will continue to join with progressive allies in the labor, environmental, religious, human rights and other communities to fight for a new national trade policy.

“Most Americans are not aware of the fact that manufacturing workers in China only makes 13 cents per hour. You can bet the large corporations doing business in China do not want these wage rates in the public eye because consumers would be screaming for product price reductions,” said Charles White, a delegate from Local 549, in Mansfield, Ohio, Region 2B.

Occupational Health And Safety

Skilled-trades workers need periodic training on health and safety standards that apply to the jobs they perform. OSHA standards are the bare minimum. In protecting ourselves, our co-workers and the community, skilled-trades workers should also be informed about and apply standards of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and National Electric Code (NEC), to name a few.

Among changes in safety that delegates called for were risk assessments for all skilled-trades workers, ergonomics programs, updated safety training, contractural protections to pick up where OSHA leaves off and skilled-trades representation on all safety committees.

After detailing an incident that sickened a skilled-trades worker during a plant rearrangement at the Flint (Mich.) Metal Center, Keith Smith, of Local 659, Region 1C, received overwhelming support to amend the resolution ensuring management compliance with hazardous material communications.

Citing the dangers of asbestos exposure in the workplace, Donald Smith, a millwright from Local 2250, Huntsville, Mo., in Region 5, stressed the importance of encouraging members who may have worked in older plants to participate in the asbestos screening program.

Apprenticeship

Bargaining committees are urged to automatically include the Skilled Trades Department at first contract negotiations for locals that have skilled trades or are negotiating a first apprenticeship program. Union members of joint apprenticeship programs should continue to review and evaluate their programs using these issues as a guideline. Corrections and amendments to existing programs must be made where appropriate. The union members of the joint apprenticeship committees must be full-time company-paid representatives, where appropriate.
Shop Chair Larry Trayhand, a Ford Transmission Plant worker in Local 863, Sharonville, Ohio, said apprenticeships are a path to the middle class and they protect our way of life.

Photo: Lee Zaichick

“Look at how many people have been put out of work in the last year. If we forget what transpired in the last election, history will repeat itself.” — J. J. Smoot, Local 882, Atlanta, Region 8.

Political Action

The UAW and the rest of the labor movement face a critically important challenge in the 2002 elections. The outcome will have an enormous impact on the policies of the federal government and the well-being of working families.

The UAW resolves to educate UAW members and workers generally about the issues and what is at stake. We pledge to do everything possible to mobilize UAW members to vote and work for political candidates who favor working families.

All delegates attending the conference must encourage a V-CAP checkoff program so our members realize the importance of political action.

Organizing

Organizing is the key to sustaining our hard-fought gains and winning new protections and economic justice.

Far too often, those workers who want to organize face illegal, immoral anti-union campaigns by employers. Federal labor laws that promise workers the right to organize are weak and enforcement is slowed by a cumbersome legal process and an anti-labor administration that rewards employers who resist compliance. This can stall the organizing campaign and frustrate workers into giving up. Similar hurdles drastically slow down the successful negotiation of a first contract for newly organized employee groups.

To accomplish our goals, we must vastly increase our density — and therefore our bargaining strength — everywhere we represent workers. We must use all our political and community leverage to support workers’ rights to organize.