Voters Say Biden Supports UAW & Trump The Auto Makers

 

The charts above reflect the results of the new Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between September 30th and October 3rd of a nationwide sample of 1,368 registered voters, with a 3 point margin of error.

Most Americans Support The United Auto Workers Strike

The chart above is from the Morning Consult Poll -- done September 9th - 11th and September 16th and 17th of about 2,200 adults each time, with a 2 point margin of error.
 

Chrysler Unions Not As Compliant As GM's

A couple of weeks ago the United Auto Worker's (UAW) union members working for General Motors (GM) OK'd a new contract. That contract allowed GM to dump it's responsibility for retiree benefits onto the union, allowed it to close several plants and reduced wages for some non-skilled workers.

At the time, I was mystified as to why the union members approved such a poor contract. Evidently, many Chrysler workers don't understand that either. Seeing the GM workers fall into line so easily, Chrysler tried to pass off the same kind of contract on its workers. They got the national UAW office to agree, but the workers aren't going along so easily this time.

So far, only the local in Kenosha (Wisconsin) has approved the contract. Five other locals have rejected the contract -- Detroit (Michigan), St. Louis (Missouri), Newark (Delaware), Fenton (Missouri) and Twinsburg (Ohio). A majority of the Chrysler workers nationwide must approve the contract for it to take effect. Otherwise, negotiations must continue.

Many locals have not yet reported, and the contract could yet be approved. But it certainly looks right now as if it will probably be defeated. It doesn't look like these workers want the same contract GM workers agreed to.

If negotiations are to continue, it might be good for Chrysler's workers to demand new union negotiators. They agreed to a bad contract with GM, and have recommended the same bad contract to Chrysler's workers.

GM Gets More Than UAW In New Contract

Last week the UAW went out on strike against General Motors, ostensibly to protect American union jobs. The strike only lasted two days before an agreement was announced and workers returned to work. Since then, both the union and GM management have lauded the new contract.

Now some details of the new contract have been made public. It's easy to see why management likes the newly proposed contract, but I'm a bit mystified as to why union leaders think it's good for their workers.

Even though workers were willing to use the most powerful tool in their arsenal -- a nation-wide strike, it looks like GM's management was able to bully UAW leaders into giving them everything they wanted.

Management was able to dump their obligation for retiree healthcare onto the union, lower wages for thousands of workers and gain approval to close two plants (and maybe several more). It sounds to me like the union needs some better negotiators. If this was the best they could do, why bother to miss two days of work?

Union leaders hailed this as a victory for the union movement in America. I disagree. I think it is indicative of the sad state of unions in this country.