State of the UAW

http://solidarity-us.org/atc/195/uaw-con-con/
Date Written:  2018-07-01
Publisher:  Against the Current
Year Published:  2018
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX23342

Since the 1979-1981 economic crisis, when the UAW convinced its members to make concessions to the Big-Three, auto-workers have been losing benefits, wages and programs. Feeley discusses the current state of UAW focusing on its leadership.

Abstract: 
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Excerpts:

Yet autoworkers, who read about Holifield and Morgan's over-the-top Venice wedding in the Detroit newspapers, knew that a UAW vice president's salary could not afford to pull off such a wedding and honeymoon. Or what about UAW Vice President Norwood Jewell's $30,000 party? Even if the Administration Caucus leadership had no knowledge of what its members were doing, couldn't they have read the signs that autoworkers understood?

It is impossible to believe that the UAW leadership did not know what was going on or that its own members were involved. The recently concluded bread-and-circus convention did not have a discussion about the failure to organize the union at Volkswagen and Nissan, the failure to prevent kickbacks - or even acknowledge that the corporations expected some return on their generous "contributions."

Yet in Michael Brown's plea agreement, prosecutors wrote that "Michael Brown knew that the purpose of the conspiracy to provide prohibited payments to UAW officials was to grease the skids in order to obtain benefits, advantages and concessions in the negotiation, implementation and administration of the collective bargaining agreements between FCA and the UAW."