Much is being made of the CAW/Daimler Chrysler deal this weekend involving the Brampton Assembly Plant. Little is being made of the fact that this deal was rejected by the membership of Brampton, and then brought back to them unchanged a month later. Here's the letter that members in the plant received last week (click on it for a full size red):
Note the following:
"There can be no debate that the information process and the subsequent vote on the agreement was filled with significant controversy, misinformation and confusion."
The union knew about the deal weeks in advance, told the membership there was a deal, then told them nothing else. A one page report was subsequently released, summarizing the details of the deal. There was an information vacuum, caused by the committee, that was indeed filled. The misinformation in question is one letter, handed out to employees, from a senior in-plant union official, that questioned the sanity of the deal. It made significant points against the deal. It filled the vacuum caused by a lazy committee that didn't want to be bothered telling the membership what they were voting on.
"The leadership of Local 1285 plant, local and the National Union despite our concerns for the plant's future respected this decision..."
They respected our the decision - very democratic of you.
"Despite your leadership's views and concerns we defended our members decision as a decision of democracy."
Of course, four days later there was a special meeting in which a new vote was held, and the union leaderships position prevailed. Buzz Hargrove himself was going to attend and berate address the membership. As noted in the linked article, the vote was passed by a 78% margin.
And that folks is how the CAW respects the memberships decisions and democracy.
Two other notes, The Brampton Assembly Plant has consistently been Chrysler's most profitable and produced the highest quality vehicles, according to all the recognized methods of measuring quality, for the past 10 - 15 years. Now they are going to shut it down over 1/2 hours pay and 40 jobs, stuff that could and should be negotiated at contract time in October 2008. Then people wonder why Chrysler is in trouble!
Second, ignore the tone of the following line in the National Post article:
outsourcing of about 40 lower-paid janitorial jobs.
These are not just some "low paid" jobs, they are the highest seniority people in the plant. They are the most sought after jobs in the plant. By lower paid, they are talking cents an hour, as in approximately 25 cents an hour less than a line worker. By sought after I mean a person with 20 years seniority has virtually no hope of getting one.
Note the following:
