Tenn. Workers Reject Union at Auto Plant

[Lectro]

Did you even read what I posted? Clearly you didn't.

The UAW didn't stonewall anything. They were willing to change their SOP.

This could be the logical next step in organized labor. It's a hybrid of old and new

There is one downside for some companies. Having a council could mean far less income for CEOs. This is what happens in this model.

Horse Shit. The workers in the Tenn. plant had a start pay of $20. The Union proposed starting pay of $15. Wonder whose fat asses were earmarked for that $5 spot. Today's UAW is a rear-view mirror entity.

 

[Shorty]

Having lived in Germany for two years and worked for a company that had works councils, I like the model. But it would be difficult to implement here given the union requirement. I realize the UAW had said they would give up their normal span of control had they won the vote. But in reality, unless by that the UAW meant that they would just collect dues and be a passive representative of the workers, their would probably be conflict.

Germany has both trade unions and works councils. But the trade unions tend to negotiate with employers associations at a kind of sector level. The works councils handle work place level stuff. In Chattanooga, there would have been two entities, sometimes with differing motivations, representing the workers to VW management. One of those entities is redundant.

The NLRB law needs to be changed. Works councils are a great idea, but there is no way VW would have invited the UAW in unless a union was required in order to implement them.

 

[Deacon923]

Having lived in Germany for two years and worked for a company that had works councils, I like the model. But it would be difficult to implement here given the union requirement. I realize the UAW had said they would give up their normal span of control had they won the vote. But in reality, unless by that the UAW meant that they would just collect dues and be a passive representative of the workers, their would probably be conflict.

Germany has both trade unions and works councils. But the trade unions tend to negotiate with employers associations at a kind of sector level. The works councils handle work place level stuff. In Chattanooga, there would have been two entities, sometimes with differing motivations, representing the workers to VW management. One of those entities is redundant.

The NLRB law needs to be changed. Works councils are a great idea, but there is no way VW would have invited the UAW in unless a union was required in order to implement them.

Yep.

The history of the labor movement in Germany vs. the US is extremely different. Labor had a role in the founding of the modern German state after the wars. In the US, labor never had a place at the table with the landed gentry who wrote the Constitution (half of the laborers were enslaved, after all) and government and industry fought labor with any and all weapons at their disposal for a century. There is so much bad blood - and I mean actual spilled blood - in the history of labor relations in the US it's hard to imagine how politically we'll ever get to a rational industrial policy that appropriately balances the interests of capital and labor.