Jamie L. LaReau, Detroit Free Press
Thu, September 21, 2023
Unifor National President Lana Payne spent a hectic day Wednesday in meetings after her victory late the night before. That's when Payne and the union that represents some 5,000 Ford autoworkers in Canada reached a tentative agreement for a new contract with the automaker.
This happened with little fanfare, but it brought relief to many across the Detroit River as the Detroit automakers averted a strike on top of the one going on in the States.
Payne, the first woman to serve as Unifor's president, had won a contract by following tradition. She chose a target company, in this case Ford, to bargain with first and get a tentative agreement. If members ratify that deal, Unifor will use it as a template with General Motors and Stellantis for contracts with them. It's called pattern bargaining.
Payne's negotiating style is noticeable for its tradition and its subtlety by comparison with her U.S. counterpart, UAW President Shawn Fain. For the first time in decades, the UAW refused to pick a target company to pattern bargain with and has filled the airwaves across mainstream media and social media with brash rhetoric and an unusual, targeted strike strategy against all three automakers at once.
The details of the Unifor deal with Ford have not been publicly released and the UAW is still without a tentative agreement, so it's hard to conclude whether Unifor's bargaining tactics were more effective. But according to a report in the Windsor Star, Unifor Local 200 President John D'Agnolo said, "This deal is historic." D’Agnolo was chair of the union's Ford master bargaining committee.
“This is going to change lives in all aspects of our membership," he told the paper. “We got gains in absolutely everything. Never in my years as a leader, did I ever think we’d get to this level.”
When the details are released to members Saturday, labor experts will be paying close attention to the outcome there as well as with the UAW whenever it gets a tentative agreement.
"What might look weaker today might be stronger tomorrow. If Canadian workers get less on paper but more in their pockets because they lost no pay striking and keep their jobs longer, are they weaker or smarter?" said Erik Gordon, labor expert and business professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. "Unifor showed it is possible to get an improved contract by focusing on negotiation more than angry rhetoric and made-for-TV theater."
Conceding to 'big ticket items'
The UAW declined to comment on the union's chosen negotiation style for this article.
But Payne told the Free Press, "Unifor has always charted our own course in negotiations, including with the Detroit Three. We chose a strategy that we felt was the best for us to be able to deliver gains on the core priorities of our members, Canadian autoworkers.”
Gordon believes Unifor's resolution will put pressure on the UAW's leadership to make progress for its members more quickly.
Fain has been doing that by ratcheting up pressure on GM, Ford and Stellantis. He has threatened that if the companies do not make "substantive progress" in negotiations by noon Friday, he will expand the strike beyond the three plants it is currently striking: Ford's Michigan Assembly in Wayne, GM's Wentzville Assembly in Missouri and Stellantis' Toledo Assembly Complex in Ohio.
Erika Mitchell, 36, of Toledo, Ohio, center, stands with skilled trade workers for gate 7 during a UAW strike outside of the Chrysler Toledo Assembly Plant in Toledo, Ohio on Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2023.
But to get a deal means different things for each union. For example, the local economy is one factor. In Canada there is national health care so that issue is of less cost to carmakers and less concern to workers than it is stateside.
"It remains to be seen which (strategy) is most effective. The proof is in the pudding," said Marick Masters, a business professor at Wayne State University. "Fain's strike strategy may work or it could backfire. It could delay having an impact on the companies and turn opinion against it, or it could gradually cause the companies to concede more to get a deal."
Masters said the UAW and the automakers are currently "too far apart on key items to make a deal possible, and nothing but a prolonged highly impactful strike that changes the companies' calculus is likely to cause them to concede these big-ticket items" such as retiree health care, defined benefit pensions, jobs banks, cost-of-living adjustments and a 32-hour workweek for 40 hours pay.
Canada used to be the militant one
Canada's union had been part of the UAW at one time, but it split off in the 1980s and formed the Canadian Auto Workers union. In 2013, it became Unifor when it merged with the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada.
"They split from the UAW because they viewed the UAW as not militant enough and forceful enough with management," said Harley Shaiken, professor emeritus and labor expert at University of California, Berkeley. "So they were viewed for years as the more militant partner."
In fact, four years ago when GM said it would permanently close its Oshawa Assembly plant in Ontario, then-Unifor National President Jerry Dias used a combination of in-your-face tactics, then toned-down cooperative rhetoric to ultimately get GM to reverse its decision. Today, some 2,600 employees at Oshawa build heavy-duty and light-duty Chevrolet Silverado pickups.
In August of last year, Payne was elected Unifor's new national president after Dias retired. She had been the union's national secretary-treasurer.
"This new leadership is experienced and really has the confidence of the membership," Shaiken said. "Lana Payne does not come out of auto but she has worked with people who are from auto."
And Unifor's needs are strikingly different from the UAW membership's, he said. Its priority is getting new investment from the international automakers, especially U.S. automakers.
"So they want to have a constructive relationship with the U.S. automakers even when they sharply disagree over a demand in contract negotiations," Shaiken said. "The disagreements are real, but the rhetoric has been quieter for that very reason.”
The Fain effect
To understand the UAW's aggressive style, one must consider Fain's rise to his position and the politics around it.
Sharon Block, executive director of the Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School and former Biden administration official, noted that Fain is the first UAW president to be elected by a direct membership election, rather than by delegates. Fain won earlier this year by a narrow margin in a runoff election.
From left, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vermont, and UAW President Shawn Fain at a rally led by United Auto Workers outside the UAW-Ford Joint Trusts Center in Detroit on Friday, Sept. 15, 2023.
"As a result, we’re seeing a different strike strategy than the UAW has ever used before," Block said in a statement.
Put another way, "Payne has nothing to prove to her members," said U-M's Gordon. "Fain acts as if he has to prove to his members that he is as tough as he said he would be in the election that he barely won."
Factor in the fact that the union is in the midst of the auto industry's transformational change to electric vehicles and eventually phasing out gasoline-powered cars.
"The strike is the union’s call to have a voice in how that transformation happens," Harvard's Block said. "They don’t want to stop change — but they want their interests, not just the interests of the companies, to be considered as that change happens. That desire to have some voice in the future will resonate a lot with many workers outside the auto industry."
The UAW's mission and likely outcome
Also, there is underlying anger of the membership over what were to be temporary concessions handed to the car companies years ago during turbulent economic times, which have now become permanent losses. One of those things was the cost-of-living adjustment, which would give wage increases throughout the life of the contract to match inflation.
The UAW is attempting to win back COLA and spur changes to the entire system for all middle class workers, not just autoworkers, said Art Wheaton, director of Labor Studies at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
Art Wheaton, director of Labor Studies at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
"The demands are much more aggressive and reflect some built-up anger from the government funded bankruptcies from 2009," Wheaton said. "Now that profitability has improved, they are trying to win back major gains and set the example for other unions and workers to follow."
Even if the UAW falls well short of initial contract demands, the union should still end up with significant improvements to wages and benefits, Wheaton said.
"The hard part will be getting the bargaining team to reach a deal they can get ratified by the membership," Wheaton said. "Unifor believes they have done so. The progress at Ford, GM and Stellantis may not be as smooth in the USA. I anticipate Ford getting a deal done very soon using some of the lessons learned in Canada with Unifor."
Shaiken said while pattern bargaining has been used effectively many times since World War II, it is only as effective as the leadership, the membership and the goals of the negotiations.
"Pattern bargaining has gotten terrific contracts," Shaiken said. "And, at times, it has failed in a weak economy or when slow auto sales undermined the gains."
Contact Jamie L. LaReau: jlareau@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Unifor, Ford deal followed contract tradition as UAW strike continues
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