Car Guys vs. Bean Counters - Bob Lutz [15]
GM, on the other hand, had dealt itself a serious problem. In the first few years after the UAW contract of 1990, GM suffered no fewer than eighteen strikes, costing the company billions. Such was the price of confrontation.
It wasn’t that the UAW leadership was recalcitrant or uncooperative; they had access to the same numbers as GM’s leadership. They knew that the competitive pressures on GM and the “other Two” were mounting.They understood that GM’s bet on increasing volumes had failed and that the sales practices employed to “move the iron” were further damaging GM’s brands. The problem wasn’t the leadership; it was the rank and file. Less wellinformed, most of the members formed a sort of “working-class aristocracy,” with average pay (including overtime) of over $100,000 per year.These were conservative, hardworking Americans with many years of service.They believed profoundly in the invincibility of the United States and its institutions. Sure, they’d heard “poor month” before, but they always got a better contract, better health care, a nice pension adjustment. And though the car companies always said these things would threaten their survival, the companies survived. The UAW rank and file, in their collective patriotism, would simply not acknowledge that a fifty-year stretch of onward, upward, more and better had run its course.
The UAW leadership knew the truth, but their freedom to act was severely constrained because they were elected by the membership. Stray too far from the majority sentiment and the UAW leader would find himself in an untenable position.Add to this the influence of lower-ranking demagogues who fought for greater standing in the union by branding the leadership as “soft” and “selling out to the company,” failing to protect the union’s hardearned gains. In hindsight, it really did take Chapter 11 bankruptcy to convince the rank and file that GM, the unshakeable, invulnerable symbol of America’s industrial dominance, had been milked to the point of collapse.
After the costly strikes in the post-1990 years, GM reluctantly concluded that a policy of toughness, of confrontation, of cramming a one-sided agenda down the throat of the UAW was not going to work. It was a war of attrition with only one possible conclusion—without production, GM would fail before the UAW ran out of money.
A “fresh start’ was called for, and GM delivered its architect in the form of Gary Cowger, then managing director of Opel in Germany. Gary was a longtime manufacturing executive and the son of a union worker. Very intelligent, but also down-to-earth and practical. He understood and respected the concerns, if not the sense of entitlement, of the UAW’s rank and file. As vice president for labor relations, Gary was soon to gain the trust of both sides. Gary was a realist. His motto was “Face it.We can’t break the UAW. They’re not going away. Let’s all recognize that fact and turn our attention to making the most of it.” The resulting relationship was exemplary.Whether it was in terms of training, quality, or productivity, GM’s plants became commendable, even drawing favorable comments from visitors like Honda. On the factory floor, the UAW and its membership became part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
Some “Monday morning quarterbacks” will say that this was all wrong—appeasement in lieu of all-out warfare and nuclear solutions. It’s easy in retrospect to say “woulda, coulda, shoulda,