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Columnists

Auto labour costs and auto industry recovery

I was recently invited to speak to the annual management briefing conference sponsored in Michigan by the Center for Automotive Research, a fine outfit which does the best research work in the continent on auto employment, workers, and skills. My slides are available here.

My panel was addressing the current UAW negotiations with the Detroit Three automakers -- the first big contract talks since the meltdown and bailouts of 2009. I was diplomatic enough as a visitor to the U.S. not to make any direct comment on the UAW talks (the "host" union), but rather addressed the broader economic issue about the North American auto industry's painful recovery, and what role -- if any -- labour costs have played.

rabble news

Saying no to concessions

In the spring of 2008, the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) union, opened contract talks early to negotiate a concessionary contract in order to give the Detroit Three auto makers (Chrysler, Ford and General Motors) a cost savings advantage they claimed they needed as the economy slid downwards, and also to avoid reopening the contract before its September 2011 expiry date.

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GM to declare bankruptcy

GM bankruptcy restructuring puts risk on to workers and has no vision for a green transportation system.

Columnists

GM reinvents more than itself

What's wrong with this picture?


The GM deal has left a lot of us scratching our heads in wonder at the power of the auto industry to garner billions in government support while the rest of us are stuck mostly going it alone, mano-a-mano with the recession.


But is it possible that the GM bail-out is a case of real-life experience that has gone so far off the rails that it's actually nudging us toward an entirely new paradigm?


Capitalism has most certainly driven itself way beyond its own comfort zone. There is no map yet for the road ahead.

for the sake of argument

Auto crisis debate: 'New thinking' stuck in old neo-liberal frame

Before I even read Alice Klein’s two rabble.ca columns on auto collective bargaining issues I was inundated with calls from friends and colleagues to respond. Most were really angry at what they considered to be criticisms of autoworkers and the CAW that were “beyond the pale,” coming from progressive sources.

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rabble news

Grand Theft Auto: How Stevie the Rat bankrupted GM

Screw the autoworkers. They may be crying about General Motors' bankruptcy today.  But dumping 40,000 of the last 60,000 union jobs into a mass grave won't spoil Jamie Dimon's day.

Dimon is the CEO of JP Morgan Chase bank.  While GM workers are losing their retirement health benefits, their jobs, their life savings; while shareholders are getting zilch and many creditors getting hosed, a few privileged GM lenders -- led by  Morgan and Citibank -- expect to get back 100 per cent of their loans to GM, a stunning $6  billion.

The way these banks are getting their $6 billion bonanza is stone cold illegal.

I smell a rat.

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