Companies have often hired replacement workers in order to operate productively and economically.
Now, General Motors has decided that hiring replacement workers will help to save the company from bankruptcy. GM hopes to buy out as many of its 113,000 union workers as possible.
As GM continues to buy out union workers with generous retirement packages, the company is dramatically lowering its labor costs. Replacement workers have proven to be the key not only to reduced costs, but also to maintaining high levels of productivity.
GM replacement workers will receive $18 to $19 an hour and no benefits. Their pay represents a 30% reduction in basic labor costs.
GM is back on the road to profitability. In fact, Merrill Lynch upgraded its stock to a buy, and GM shares have been increasing in value all week..
The Center for Union Facts, a Washington DC advocacy organization, has created several anti-union ads for television. The ads use ironic humor to get its message out to viewers. For example, in a 30-second commercial that aired on the Fox Network, a black construction worker says, “I really like how the union discriminates against minorities. Thanks union bosses!”
Other actors who pose as workers explain what they love about unions: paying dues, having their dues support politicians whom they don’t favor, and the fat cat lifestyles of union leaders.
The ads serve to drive home the message that unions offer sinecures to those in power who are out of touch with the rank and file. The messages also imply a level of corruption.
Altogether, these ads represent something new and should prove highly effective in clarifying the public perception of unions as isolated bodies that grant special favors to their top leaders while ignoring the basic needs of their members.
I should add that these commercials were filmed with non-union actors and crews. How could it be otherwise!
A majority of production and maintenance workers at R. J. Reynolds voted against representation by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union. More than 1,200 workers voted against union representation, while 860 voted for union representation.
The two unions have combined forces and intend to challenge the results with the NLRB. Among the loser’s typical gripes are that the company used veiled threats and mis-information to the defeat the organizing effort and subsequent election.
Such an accusation might have more credibility if workers hadn’t rejected union representation a year ago by more than a 2 to 1 margin.
This is another example of how unions are out of touch with workers and how smart management-planning can create a strategy that permits companies to operate without the often crippling burdens of oppressive unionization.
In New York City, a strike by 28,000 doormen was averted due to compromises on both sides.
In my book Everybody Wins!, I advocated that if management and labor are to work toward a common good, they must bury the hatchet, give up on adversarial relations, and learn to work toward commonly shared goals. That is exactly what happened in New York City, one of the most union friendly cities in the US.
Right up to the time when the doormen’s union was to vote on a new contract, pundits predicted that there would be a massive strike and that other building employees would not cross picket lines.
Fair mindedness and intelligent compromise prevailed. The union accepted some of management’s goals, for management had made their goals acceptable to the union. The negotiators on both sides are to be commended for achieving a result where Everybody Wins!