APRIL
2001
2001
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APRIL
2001 |
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Msgr. George Higgins praised the UAW Public Review Board (PRB) as an “absolutely unique experiment in democracy” at a luncheon honoring him during the UAW CAP conference in Washington D.C., in February. Higgins retired last fall after serving as chairman of the UAW PRB since 1966 and as a member since 1957 when it was first established. The Public Review Board, composed of seven impartial citizens including many well-known professors, provides UAW members with a final court of appeals to protect their rights to fair and ethical treatment. Higgins noted that the PRB does not have the power to pass judgments on the economic decisions of the union. “It would have been totally unrealistic for this board to have anything to do with policy making,” Higgins said. Msgr. Higgins, who was wearing the Presidential Medal of Freedom given him by President Clinton last August, is the longtime director of the Social Action Department of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. “It will be hard to imagine the PRB without Msgr. Higgins,”
said UAW President Stephen P. Yokich, who described him as a “priest,
a scholar, a trade unionist and a social activist.” Yokich underscored the commitment of the UAW to the PRB when he said that the issue of retaining the PRB was the biggest holdup in unification talks with the Machinists and Steelworkers. “Without the PRB, we couldn’t merge,” Yokich said. Higgins will be succeeded as PRB chairman by Prof. Theodore J. St. Antoine
from the University of Michigan.
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