The transplants were able to start with a clean slate in new plants and with policies which reflected new behavioral science concepts and policies advocated by W. Edwards Deming, e.g., very few job classifications (two production classifications: Team Member and Team Leader, and two skilled trades classifications: mechanical maintenance and electrical maintenance whereas, a typical big three plant had multiple production and skilled trades job classifications which resulted in many disputes, problems and inefficiencies.) The UAW and the auto companies have cooperated to eliminate many of these problems through “modern operating agreements” which permit more efficient production and maintenance. A number of Big Three plants equal or exceed productivity in the Japanese transplants.

From my experience in GM, the UAW deserves criticism for letting the local negotiations process get out of control when Leonard Woodcock was President and Irving Bluestone VP of the GM department. Local unions, instead of making good faith efforts to settle grievances on their merits saved them up to be bargained wholesale under the gun of a local strike deadline. This put tremendous pressure on management to concede to extreme demands at key parts plants or assembly plants for models in short supply. This process spread from triennial contract negotiations to strike authorizations during the contract over allegedly unreasonable production standards or health and safety hazards. The UAW damaged plant efficiency in many GM plants by sujecting them to the pressure of 5-day strike authorization notices. And GM management failed to develop an effective policy to deal with this problem. Instead of insisting that grievances be dealt with in the regular grienvance and arbitration procedure on their merits, out of short-run sales and profits considerations, management succumbed to countless unreasonable grievance settlements and unwise agreements on local work rules. Unravelling the accumulated mess cannot be accomplished by the stroke of a pen by the national parties. A long and arduous process is required.

At the national negotiations level mistakes were made as well. In my estimation the worst was the infamous “Jobs Bank” agreement negotiated by Alfred S. Warren, with the approval of Roger Smith, with Owen Bieber. Instead of telling the UAW that it was impossible to guarantee lifetime income security in a collective bargaining agreement; that job security could be achieved only by making attractive products and selling them at affordable prices; and this was especially true in view of the unprecedented international competition facing the company. GM didn’t tell the union that. Instead the company, at a time the need to downsize was forseeable, made an agreement that greatly increased the cost of downsizing. This 1982 agreement should have gotten a Darwin award for the worst agreement in the history of collective bargaining.

Don’t get me started. Anyway, nobody would believe me.