Chrysler Waits Obligitory 5-day Period Between 1st Date and Massive Layoffs

We’re sure you’ve heard by now that Chrysler is showing its hand after avoiding the GM security promise during its latest contract talks. The now-private company let out that it may cut up to 10,000 jobs.

Not having the capacity or interest (or meager financial support) of official news outlets, we’ve waited for the story on the layoffs effects on Ford’s still-pending UAW negotiations so we can poach it for our own article here.

From Reuters:

Jerry Tucker, a former UAW regional director who lobbied against the Chrysler and GM contracts, said Ford workers may feel a sense of betrayal to a point, but that would not necessarily keep them from approving a contract.

“Ford workers should look at this just the same, that they could ratify an agreement one day and see massive cutbacks the next day,” Tucker said.

The analysists seem to be agreeing with Mr. Tucker. Consensus is that Chrysler’s layoffs will make it exceedingly difficult for Ford to get the concessions it needs, because now the UAW looks emaciated. It’s sitting in the middle of the negotiations with battered union syndrome.

While we wouldn’t go as far as some and call this a “death knell” of the old school smokestack union, it is a blow to their status.

From the NY Times today:

Thursday’s additional job cuts could leave egg on the face of the auto unions. As Daimler prepared to sell Chrysler, Buzz Hargrove, the head of the Canadian Auto Workers Union, said that handing the company keys to a buyout firm would be the “worst-case” scenario.

“Our fear is private equity,” Mr. Hargrove told The Washington Post in March. “They are not out to build cars. It could mean throwing a lot of people out of work and then reselling” the company.”

Yet the unions were brought round to Cerberus as a new owner. In a statement announcing the Chrysler sale, the United Automobile Workers’ president, Ron Gettelfinger, said the deal “was in the best interests of our U.A.W. members, the Chrysler Group and Daimler.”

And elsewhere in the Times:

The U.A.W. did not comment. But one dissident union leader, Gregg Shotwell, said Chrysler’s actions threatened to create general distrust and divisiveness within the union.

Union leaders “certainly deserve to be distrusted because they misled people,” said Mr. Shotwell, whose group, Soldiers of Solidarity, campaigned against the versions of the U.A.W. contract that passed at Chrysler and G.M. “This has opened up people’s eyes.”

That idea has Wired News (yeah, we don’t know either) saying Chrysler’s private equity model will do away with unions entirely:

Cerberus [Chrysler's parent co.] has made noises about profit sharing with its workers, which has been Silicon Valley’s preferred defense against unions. And even many UAW workers agree that smokestack unions everywhere are outmoded, inefficient and often corrupt. No doubt, profit sharing is the way of the future.

The big question in the short run is: what does Ford do now? They’re arguably the farthest away from a recovery, and now they’ve got an expiring contract and a Union that’s been striking for fun lately but still feels like it’s against the wind.

And whose fault is it? Feel free to post your Detroit Diatribe in the comments.

Who’s Running Things in D-Town?

One of the big-picture things that has been overlooked for the most part during this round of negotiations in Detroit is the fractured results. After the GM deal came in, pundits began debating the balance of interests in the contract, assuming it would be the boilerplate for the other two members of the little-big 3. Now that the Chrysler contract is (barely) a done deal, and offers a lot less job security to the employees, those same brains are starting to wonder if the Ford talks are going to go even farther toward the “look-we’re-trying-to-stay-in-business” talks of the airline industry during the United bankruptcy.

From the NY Times (via Workplace Prof Blog):

Talks [at Ford], which continued at a slow pace during the Chrysler vote, are expected to step up over the weekend. Generally, the U.A.W. expects to win the same contract terms under its practice of pattern bargaining, but as at Chrysler, the union may have to settle on something apart from the G.M. pact. . . .

But nobody seems to note how remarkable this is – the UAW practically perfected pattern bargaining, and now, without fanfare, they’re watching the process fall apart.
Why is this? Is it just that the Big 3 aren’t as comparable as they used to be? Admittedly, GM is farther along in their “restructuring” than Ford or even Chrysler. Or did the GM negotiation – and the debate over the strength of the union at the bargaining table – place Chrysler in a better position to say no this time around? Is that possible, with both contracts coming after strikes for the first time in decades?

Let the armchair analysis begin. Meantime, we are waiting with bated breath for the Ford contract – and the subsequent vote. With Chrysler’s less-beneficial contract approved by a narrow margin during some serious in-fighting in the union, we can only imagine the double-overtime action the Ford vote is going to bring.

This just in! – Unoriginal Chrysler Employees Walk Out!

This was just posted a few minutes ago….I thought it was relevant, being from Detroit and all.
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071010/auto_talks.html?.v=21

Somebody should’ve told them striking is so last month.

More info when we get it…