Pay structure worries union members

UAW members are concerned that the system is weakening the union.
DETROIT FREE PRESS
DETROIT -- UAW members harbor widespread concern about a two-tier pay and benefits plan that they believe may come out of this year's contract negotiations with Detroit automakers.
The plan essentially creates a situation in which new hires never catch up to the wages and benefits of current Detroit autoworkers.
"We're worried about the second-tier people. The companies are treating them like second-class citizens," said Daniel Gibson, 41, a Delphi Corp. worker from Athens, Ga., who is in Detroit this week for the 2007 UAW Special Convention. "They pay dues, but they don't get the benefits that full-time workers have. They need cost-of-living adjustments. They need better health care benefits. They need a pension."
A few workers accept the idea as a way to help the companies make some of the cost-saving changes necessary to compete with Toyota and Honda.
But most say agreeing to the two-tier system, such as the one the UAW already has in place at Delphi Corp., is a way to divide and weaken the union in less than a generation and ensure that middle-aged union members won't have secure pension and health care benefits when they retire.
Regretting the decision?
The union, which accepted the two-tier structure in the first place at Delphi, now laments the creation of a class of "perma-temps," listing the topic as a key issue in its proposed collective bargaining resolution.
"More and more employers in all sectors are outsourcing work, creating an underclass of 'perma-temps' who lack full wages and benefits, are employed by outside contractors and have no job security," according to documents prepared for the union for the convention. "We will bargain for enhanced job status, better pay and benefits and union protection for temporary, contract and contingent workers."
And UAW President Ron Gettelfinger on Tuesday said the union will fight to protect wages, health care and pensions for its members.
But some workers fear that that won't happen if the union doesn't demand equal treatment for all workers. And they fear that the union won't do that.
In 2003, the UAW already accepted a plan to offer lower wages -- 14 an hour instead of 27 -- for new hires at Delphi.
At Chrysler, the union allowed the hiring of temporary workers at its Belvidere, Ill., plant. Those workers earn 18 an hour, can be fired at any time and are not eligible for the jobs bank. The jobs bank is the UAW benefit through which full-benefit union workers continue to draw most of their wages even when they are laid off.
And Delphi Corp. Chairman Steve Miller said in February that he expects the automakers will follow Delphi's lead and negotiate to have two tiers of pay and benefits this year and to allow for hiring a less-skilled workforce.
Gerald Meyers, a professor of management at the University of Michigan and former chairman and CEO of American Motors Corp., said workers are right to think that the two-tier wage plan is growing in popularity among unionized employers.
"The two-tier thing is something else, and it's coming at us like a freight train," Meyers said. "It's accepted by the UAW in certain quarters already. It isn't cutting new ground as far as the UAW is concerned. The thing that is new is that it's successful. It hasn't caused a labor disruption. That removes some of the strength of the UAW arguing that you can't do it. I think we're going to see more of it."