With the UAW's strike against General Motors nearing the one-month mark, some labor experts say it might be time to consider alternative ways to resolve things if a deal is not reached soon.
The union on Friday evening offered what it described as a comprehensive counterproposal and the parties were meeting Saturday.
About 46,000 UAW workers went on strike at 55 U.S. GM locations at 12:01 a.m. Sept. 16. GM had offered the union a proposal two hours before the 2015 contract expired at midnight Sept. 14.
GM CEO Mary Barra, concerned about the pace of talks, had met Wednesday with top union officials and two of her lieutenants, and a flurry of sharply worded letters followed over the next two days. GM urged round-the-clock talks and complained that the union was too slow to respond to its offer made Monday, while the UAW said GM was playing games and not taking it seriously.
Friday morning, GM sent a letter to all of its hourly and salaried workers saying it was critical that the two sides reach an agreement and end the strike. GM outlined its most recent proposal to the union.
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The two sides had a meeting at the main table Friday, then worked in subcommittees until the UAW made its offer Friday. GM offered no public response to the union's proposal.
The options
The public bickering and slow progress had some experts saying it may be time to consider alternatives to bargaining.
"If the UAW doesn’t get off the ground and start making some decisions, they need to bring in a third party to help them," said Marick Masters, director of labor at Wayne State University. "In theory, if the president were to declare a national emergency, they would have to go to mediation. But that’s not likely to happen for some considerable time, if ever.”
The two sides will continue efforts to reach a tentative agreement before considering alternatives, people close to both sides said.
"Our focus is and continues to be on the over 48,000 striking GM workers and their families as we negotiate a fair agreement on wages, job security, quality affordable health care and a better pathway for temporary workers," said Brian Rothenberg, UAW spokesman.
Here are some possibilities in the event that the two sides continue without any progress:
- Hire a federal or private mediator to come in and help resolve the issues.
- The UAW could switch target companies to Ford Motor Co. or Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.
- The parties could bring in the "heavyweights" — Barra and UAW President Gary Jones to negotiate directly. Jones, who has been implicated in an ongoing federal corruption investigation that has led to 11 charges, mostly of union officials, was one of the people meeting with Barra on Wednesday.
- Bargain intensively and get a deal done.
So when should they consider alternative options?
"When they don’t think that they can get to an agreement and talks are not productive anymore," said Kristin Dziczek, vice president of Industry, Labor & Economics at the Center for Automotive Research. "The people in the room are the only ones who know that."
Neutral third party
A federal mediator has never been used in automaker bargaining, experts said. But it is a possibility and "probably a good idea at this point," said Erik Gordon, professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.
"A mediator doesn't know anything the UAW and GM don't already know, but a mediator can help them step back from their strong, public stances without forcing either side to show weakness to their constituencies," said Gordon. "A mediator can help people cross over an impasse by giving them psychological and social cover."
Former GM negotiator Art Schwartz said he's not convinced a mediator would help and he does not foresee that happening. Schwartz worked in labor for 24 years with GM and said he never had to bring in a mediator.
"I would rather the parties spend their time bargaining than bringing a mediator up to speed on all the detailed issues of this set of negotiations," said Schwartz.
Mediation is a bad option for both parties, Dziczek said, because, "Nobody’s driving the bus" and both sides put their fate in the hands of an outsider.
"They hand it over to the mediator and he or she chops and dices it and says that’s it," said Dziczek.
Also, a mediator hurts the relationship between a union and a company that must continue to work together over the length of the four-year contract resolving small and large conflicts on a regular basis.
There has been talk, partly among some union local leaders, of the UAW switching its target to Ford or FCA to try to reach a deal while remaining on strike against GM. The union chose to bargain with GM first with plans to take that deal as a template seeking agreement with the other two.
The switch
The union has in the past threatened switching target companies, Dziczek said, and often that is enough to reignite talks and reach a deal.
Earlier this year, many had pushed for Ford to be the target company believing the UAW could get a good contract there with smooth negotiating. But Terry Dittes, the union's vice president for its GM Department, wanted to take a fight to GM after the automaker announced last November that it would idle Lordstown Assembly in Ohio, Detroit Hamtramck and Warren and Baltimore transmission plants.
A person familiar with the UAW's bargaining said switching target companies is not yet an option.
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If the UAW were to do that and leave GM workers on strike, it would be devastating to GM, which would lose control of bargaining its contract and have production in a prolonged shutdown while the union bargained with a crosstown rival. It would also hurt union workers who, if remaining on strike, must get by on $275 a week in strike wages.
"Everybody wants to be the lead because you can set the tone and terms of what is most advantageous to you," said Dziczek. "So GM wouldn’t like that. But it would be most painful to the workers who are out on strike. It’s not good for either side, but it’s probably better than mediation from the union’s side."
The heavyweights
Most labor industry experts and observers agree that the letters back and forth between the UAW and GM as well as those made public to the media outlining some details of the offers are highly unusual in bargaining.
It's not unheard of, though. In 2011, then-Chrysler Group LLC CEO Sergio Marchionne penned a letter to former UAW President Bob King hours before the automaker's contract expired.
Marchionne had flown into Detroit from the Frankfurt auto show in Germany to finalize a deal.
"You and I failed them today," read the letter. "We did not accomplish what leaders who have been tasked with the turning of a new page for this industry should have done."
Marchionne said he planned to travel out of the country for business and will return the following week. King did not comment.
“The reasons they don’t bargain in the media is it does kind of whipsaw the membership to hanging on to something that was early on in the negotiations that isn’t true now," said Dziczek. "And, it’s hard to tell where things stand.”
Barra, Dittes and Jones, along with GM lead negotiator Scott Sandefur and Gerald Johnson, GM's executive vice president of global manufacturing, met last week for about an hour. The meeting was intended to revive and speed up the negotiations. If it fails, it is possible that Barra and Jones could just take over talks, said Masters.
“I don’t think they’d want to do that, but these are different times and I think they need to think outside of the box," said Masters. "The fact that they had to bring in the leadership to get it going, then they may need a neutral third party to help work things out."
Masters said if a deal is within reach and the parties need a little help getting it done, they should entertain an alternative, "otherwise you jeopardize the future of the company and the future of autoworkers. This has lasted a lot longer than people expected.”
Both Schwartz and Dziczek favor continued focused bargaining as the best solution, keeping in mind there have to be trade offs.
“In collective bargaining neither side is really rowing the boat, they’re rowing it together," Dziczek said. "But if one is rowing one way and the other is rowing another they’re going around in circle, which is what we see going on here. It has to be compromise by both sides and they’ve got to be talking and focused on getting a tentative agreement and an end to the strike.
"Maybe cooler heads will prevail," said Dziczek. "All of the other options are ugly.”
Contact Jamie L. LaReau at 313-222-2149 or jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter.
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