Ford to CAW: WE Want Pattern Bargaining
Now that Ford has told the Canadian Autoworkers Union they want the same concessions bankrupt GM and Chrysler got, what choice does the CAW have? From day one their motto has been the same deal for all. It’s called pattern bargaining, and they insist it’s necessary for a variety of reasons, one of which is to not provide a competitive advantage to any one company.
“Wait,” I hear Ford workers saying. “Ford didn’t go bankrupt; Ford didn’t take government money; Ford is doing just fine, why should we give concessions?”
The answer: pattern bargaining. It works on the way up, and it works on the way down. Chrysler and GM weren’t good enough at doing business to survive with that contract, so why should Ford have to?
Thus, Ford Motor Company will get their wish, they will recieve the same concessions that the other companies got, and Ford’s workers will be pressured and threatened and cajoled into accepting those concessions, because that’s what’s good for Chrysler and GM employees.
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We took concessions at Honda of Canada Manufacturing as well and several hundred people took buyouts to balance out the loss of one of 4 shifts.
Our benefit package was changed and reduced slightly, many of those extra perks, ie. company picnic, Christmas party, discount tickets, news papers in the Cafeteria, ect. have been cut. Also our semi annual performance/attendance bonus has been cut by 50%, a reduction in bonus pay of about $1600 per year and overtime has been basically eliminated by using 9-5 office staff and matenece workers for shift prep and to run the line if over time is needed.
Honda seems to be playing the labour cost cutting game to the point where there is a buzz about Unionizing that I have never heard before from associates that always spoke out against the several unions that have tried for 20 years to represent HCM.
I don’t really know if these cuts bother me … I can remember what working for myself and others for a third of the pay and no benefits was like.
ATTENDANCE bonus??? As in “come to work and we’ll give you EXTRA money on top of the money we already pay you for being there”??? Good Lord sometimes the sheer stupidity of things just hurts my brain…
@bob Bob,In a very large factory where everyone specialized in a specific area of manufacturing and assembling a product with thousands of parts attendance is very important to keeping the assembly line running with no quality problems.
At Honda and Toyota we receive a few dollars less per hour then the CAW, however because of the costs to efficiency of poor attendance. Honda and Toyota decided long ago to make part of the competitive pay rate as an attendance bonus. This earned bonus gives incentive to have perfect or close to perfect attendance and this bonus brings Non-Unionized Auto Workers rates up to that of the level of CAW’s Collective bargaining rates with near perfect attendance.
Recently the rates for the CAW have been cut so Honda and Toyota are following suit and making cuts in slightly different forms but remaining competitive with the CAW. Currently Ford employees are receiving the largest compensation package for their hard work, and as Brian points out in his blog Ford is looking at collective bargaining rates to reduce their labour costs.