UAW reaches tentative sellout agreement with Ford

This deal will only expand the number of poverty level second tier workers while freezing wages for senior workers while ensuring billions in profits for Ford. It does nothing to restore the $30,000 per worker in wages and benefits surrendered by the UAW since 2007. Both the UAW executives and Ford officials have praised the agreement for ensuring the continued profitability of the company, which posted a near-record $6.6 billion profit in 2010. But what about the workers? The contract is so transparently detrimental to the interests of auto workers that most labor analysts have voiced concern that the UAW does not have it's members best interest in mind. They predict it will be defeated in the upcoming rank-and-file ratification vote. Ford workers have shown in the past they will not surrender to a sellout by the UAW Leadership. Workers will get a $6,000 (bribe) uh, signing bonus, as well as annual lump sum payments of $1,500 instead of long needed cost-of-living increases. (more bribes) The elimination of cost-of-living raises and increases in base pay for senior workers will save the company billions of dollars, since pensions and other benefits are calculated on the basis of hourly wages. Instead of fighting for a wage increase, the UAW has substituted profit-sharing. This means that the wages of Ford workers are directly tied to the future profitability of the company. In addition, 10 percent of the profit sharing bonuses will be diverted to the UAW-controlled retiree health benefit fund. (Ford has reneged on it's commitment to fully fund VEBA and now the workers pay is being gutted by 10% to cover the company lie) Ford is offering $100,000 buyouts to skilled trades workers and $50,000 to production workers. The company is pushing to get these better-paid workers out the door as a step toward creating a workforce consisting entirely of lower paid workers. (Traditional skilled work will be supplemented by 2nd-Tier production workers) In a failing attempt to sell the contract to UAW members, union executives are praising Fords promise to add 5,750 new jobs. However, all of the new jobs will pay the lower, second tier wage, currently $15.50 an hour. This is little more than half the $28 pay of regular hourly workers. Ford is boasting that as a result of the agreement, it will be able to begin in-sourcing. In a press release announcing the new agreement, UAW Vice President Jimmy Settles said it would allow workers to share in Fords prosperity. This is a lie. Not only will second tier workers continue to earn lower hourly wages, they will still be burdened with inferior health plans and almost no pension plans. The net result will be no increase in labor costs for the company. (But more profit for the company and more UAW leadership jobs at Solidarity House!) As every Ford worker knows, company CEO Alan Mulally took in $82.5 million in compensation this past year. The compensation of Fords top executives alone would be enough to provide a substantial pay raise to every Ford worker. The introduction of the two-tier wages system combined with the UAWs eagerness to keep new workers at poverty level wages means a lose-win for the UAW and the auto makers. The UAW is creating a nonsensical caste system in its ranks while GM and Ford benefit with cheaper labor that allows them to be more strategic in how they use their US plants.

This separation of classes of workers has been fought before. Superiority and inferiority due to skin color, religion, economic status, and social status is a slap in the face to human rights activists around the world. By offering up UAW members as cheap labor, the UAW hopes to attract the foreign transplants into their facilities. Its all about more dues to keep fat paychecks at Solidarity House for the union elite! This is what the UAW means by job security. This deal only represents the interests of the well-paid officials staffing the UAW offices, who, by joining Ford executives by driving down labor costs, stand to reap handsome profits from their holdings in the stock of the auto companies. Since 2000, the UAW has helped Ford eliminate middle class jobs from 102,462 to about 41,000 today., and with this new deal, thousands more will be gone or at poverty level wages. Workers have received no wage increase since 2003, resulting in an effective wage cut of 20 percent. About that equity of Sacrifice grievance....It should have been settled BEFORE the Tentative Agreement...Wonder why it didn't? We will not be getting anything from that now either, since it isn't addressed in our "DEAL" This contract amount to little more than a conspiracy between two business entities, Ford Motor Company and the UAW, that share a vested interest in the assault and exploitation of auto workers. Ford workers everywhere are already mobilizing now to defeat the contract. All wage and benefit concessions surrendered by the UAW must be restored. This means the removal of the two-tier wage system and the restoration of full cost-of-living increases to all workers as well as annual wage increases. This attack on its members by the UAW requires a stand against the UAW, which now functions as an enforcement arm of management. We need a UAW that will bring back the defense of jobs, wages, pensions, health care and working conditions for all. Wall Street and the Big Three in alliance with the UAW, has used the world economic crisis to head the deepest assault on auto workers since the formation of the unions in the 1930s. The working class needs to shake things up at Solidarity House to start representing its workers again. We need a UAW that meets the needs of the working class, not the profit drive of the financial elite at the head of the corporations or the head of our union!

VOTE NO!

VOTE NO!

VOTE NO!