LaborPains.org

From the Chicago Tribune this morning — from reporters, not columnists:

Three top Democratic presidential contenders used a Chicago union meeting to pledge their fealty to organized labor Tuesday even though one union regarded as among the most politically influential in the nation has decided to hold off on any endorsement.

According to the Detroit Free Press, here is what this morning’s agreement between General Motors and the United Auto Workers “won” for the union:

• No wage increases.
• A $3,000 signing bonus for workers.
• A two-tier wage and benefits scale for new hires.
• A second-tier of compensation for jobs that GM and the UAW agreed are “non-core” production jobs. This is expected to include many positions in which workers do not have their hands on a vehicle in the assembly process.
• A targeted special attrition program that the automaker expects to offer to relieve the pain of wage reductions for workers currently assigned to jobs defined as “non-core” in the tentative deal.
• The possibility of the automaker maintaining the same level of its U.S. manufacturing workforce.

In fact, according to the report, the union won’t be in charge of running the health care plan — which is probably the only good news for UAW members.

When is a strike not a strike? With changing technology, that’s an important question. The AFL-CIO and UNI are supporting a planned virtual strike against IBM. Employees from as many as 18 countries are reportedly ready to participate. But here’s the puzzling kicker:

“Be aware that IBM US employees participating in this virtual strike must do so on their own time using their own personal pc,” says a warning on an AFL-CIO posting about the strike.

Lee Conrad, an executive with the Alliance@IBM union in New York, echoed that warning.

“The Alliance is participating but we are telling our members and employees to join the strike online from home during non-work time with their own PCs,” Conrad told The Skinny.

Is a strike in a virtual world a strike or a virtual complaint box? And is it a strike when you have to do it off work hours and on your own property? These are important questions to ponder as more of the world world moves off the docks and out of the factories and into bits and bytes.

The Wall Street Journal, in its lead editorial this morning, sums up the problem facing GM and the UAW:

The Big Three’s woes — from shrinking market share to high benefit costs to overcapacity — were built up over decades. They’re the fault of both management and the UAW, which saw these problems coming but refused to do anything real to address them. The great tragedy is that the two sides didn’t make these hard choices 20 years ago, when they might have saved tens of thousands of jobs and spared a region much economic distress. Better to take a strike and its costs now, than continue the slow slide toward Chapter 11.

UPDATE: The National Association of Manufacturers adds:

Note to UAW members: If you want job security, go into government service. GM is in trouble today because previous managements made promises that simply were not sustainable in the long term. The current management is determined to avoid that mistake. To survive and prosper, GM must remain flexible. It’s a tough world out there for manufacturing, tougher than it’s ever been before. The UAW rank and file need to accept that reality, suck it up and get back to work.

Since the UAW has shown a flair for theatrics in its negotiations with General Motors, we thought we’d demonstrate a similar pizazz. CNSNews.com has a good round-up of the labor strife, and they were kind enough to include our thoughts:

However, Bret Jacobson, senior research analyst at the Center for Union Facts (CUF), told Cybercast News Service that GM “appears to be trying to buy some breathing room as it tries to modernize its workforce, while the union appears to be trying to hold onto the 1950s with all it’s got.”

Noting that the last national UAW strike crippled Ford in 1976, Jacobson said the time between that walkout and this one “has been just long enough for union officials to forget how devastating those actions can be for their own members.”

Jacobson also called the union’s decision to call the strike “puzzling” because the action “endangers one of the major employers that feed and clothe their members.” He also said there is “a rich irony” in the UAW demanding job security and then allowing members to make what could be a devastating walkout.

From the Union-Free Employer blog.

See here.

Good news from the folks at the AFL-CIO. Union membership is up! In fact, the headline over the federation’s Now blog says it all: Workers Joining AFL-CIO Unions at Highest Rate in Two Generations. The highlights:

• Between 2004 and 2006, according to documents filed with the U.S. Labor Department, the combined growth of AFL-CIO unions rose by 1.42 percent, a net gain of 136,000 members.
• Government unions AFSCME and the Postal Workers added a combined 175,000 members.
• The Communications Workers Association added 10,000 through a (troubling) deal with Cingular (which still drops our calls, despite their ads to the contrary).
• Nearly 66,000 peopled joined the Screen Actors Guild.

Which leads us to wonder: Why in God’s name — when working Americans are “joining AFL-CIO unions” at the “highest rate in two generations” — do we need to upend the current system in which people join unions with the protection of secret ballots?