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From Labor Action, Vol. 14 No. 19, 8 May 1950, p. 2.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
DETROIT. Apr. 24 – Premature announcements by United Auto Workers officials last week that the Chrysler strike was almost over raised hopes among the 89,000 strikers that they would be back to work this week with a sound pension plan, a new health insurance program, and an improved contract.
“We’ve got the ball on the five-yard line,” Norman Mathews, UAW Chrysler director, declared last week. Walter P. Reuther, UAW president, told a mass rally of strikers at Nine Mile Road that the end was here.
But the strike entered its fourth month this week, and Chrysler keeps pounding away in negotiations and through full-page newspaper advertisements in a campaign calculated to weaken the UAW in Chrysler plants.
Back in 1947 Norman Mathews had unfortunately sent a letter to the corporation in which he agreed with a company contention that shop stewards and committeemen were abusing the grievance procedure and spending time on other things. Today the corporation quoted this letter in one of its a.ds and urged the union to “assume responsibility.” It also quoted from an old NLRB ruling against the union, to try to prove its case that it is only asking the UAW to live up to previous contractual obligations.
What’s behind this new twist in the company propaganda? Essentially it is a shrewd counterattack against the union demands for badly-needed contract improvements on grievance procedure, holiday pay, company security, seniority, etc.
Chrysler has offered the union a voluntary checkoff in return for giving up the present system of chief stewards and shop committees functioning in the plants. Chrysler wants to substitute the General Motors setup for its present-one. but this is meeting with terrific resistance among the UAW activists, and the union negotiators to date are standing pat on this situation.
In the GM setup, stewards’ or committeemen’s time is limited to a few hours in which the union officials can negotiate grievances. Under the present Chrysler setup, the chief stewards and committeemen may and often do spend full time on union grievances within the shop. Any limitation of this power of the chief stewards and committeemen would weaken the union’s position in the shop. It would pile up grievances, which already are sufficiently great in number to merit major contract improvements to eliminate them.
Under the bargaining procedure, the grievances now go through channels that remind one of army red tape before they are finally settled.
Last week the company outman-euvered the union on the question of the pension plan. The company offer which, we have noted in these columns, had many “gimmicks” in it, turns oift to be, with whatever poor features it has, better than either the Ford or Nash pension plans. Likewise, the corporation gave in on health insurance to an extent that goes far beyond the Ford or Nash settlement. And the union negotiators accepted this last offer, with minor details to be worked out. Then the corporation announced through full-page ads that the pension and health insurance issue was settled, so why the strike? Of course the corporation knew that the contract questions were not, settled, but it utilized the confusion to hammer away at the UAW’s prestige.
The continued failure, of the Reuther leadership to keep the ranks really informed of the state of negotiations and to carry out an effective counter-publicity campaign has been one of the astonishing features of this strike. Unlike the General Motors strike in 1946, when Reuther beat the corporation to the punch on every issue, the UAW now seems to be lagging behind on publicity.
At the present time the main feature of the Chrysler pension plan is a funding similar to Ford, but with 25 years’ seniority at the age of 65 necessary for eligibility for retirement with $100 a month, including social security. At Ford the years required for seniority are 30. Chrysler makes 1,700 hours yearly the amount of work needed to get a full years’ credit. This is too high, but at Ford it is 1,800; at Nash it is also 1,700. Chrysler has agreed to pay ½ of health insurance (the Blue Cross or Blue Shield plan). Neither Ford nor Nash has this provision.
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Last updated: 24 January 2024