UAW strike a model for mobilizing US workers
After many years of corporate rule, labor wants a say
Detroit is being watched.
Its fight between hourly factory workers and a multibillion dollar global corporation is providing a glimpse of what the future may hold for tech workers and tech executives, say Silicon Valley experts.
“People are looking to Detroit as a model for how you can unionize and collectively mobilize against management,” said Margaret O’mara, author of “The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America” and a professor of history at the University of Washington.
“There’s some commonalities,” she said. “Workers at General Motors are saying, ‘Look, you guys are swimming in profit and you should not be cutting our health care. We need to be more like partners in this.’ So, too, are workers at these very large tech companies saying, ‘Hey, you, you’re swimming in profit. You have all these contract workers you’re not treating fairly or as full employees and giving them benefits. We don’t like what you’re doing and we’re going to push back.’ ”
In fact, a key sticking point in the union talks with GM is what to do about thousands of “temporary” workers who earn a bit more than half the wage of workers standing next to them. Fulltime workers are fighting for those UAW members who have no clear path to permanent jobs.
As some 46,000 hourly auto industry employees finished their second week on strike nationwide, bringing to a halt 55 GM sites in 10 states, the UAW is in the spotlight as an example of what an $800 million strike fund can do. It has budgeted $250 a week in strike pay for members and didn’t back down from its positions when its adversary abruptly announced on Day 2 of the strike a decision to shift health care coverage from GM to COBRA – which would be paid by the Detroit-based international union. After days of criticism, GM backed off on that move.
‘Bad rap’
Silicon Valley entrepreneurs known for innovation say the UAW-GM contract negotiations could play a key role in determining whether income inequality and divisions continue growing between workers and top employees.
Jared Fliesler, who held senior positions at Google and worked with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in the early days to grow it into the $25 billion business it is today, is among those watching closely.
“It sounds like the employees in good financial positions are lifting their fellow workers and taking a stand for fairness, even when the fight isn’t their own. And I think that’s amazing,” said Fliesler, who in 2013 at age 28 was the youngest general partner at a venture capital firm.
“Unions often get a bad rap. But there’s a time and place and a reason why they were formed. This is that time and place,” said Fliesler, now chief operating officer at Scrid, a subscriptionbased service often seen as a Netflix for reading.
Google unionizing
“I look at Detroit and see GM workers on strike,” historian O’mara said. “Then I have people call me to say Google contractors are unionizing in Pittsburgh. The common thread is this larger public conversation is about the power of corporations – of which CEO pay is part of it – and the power of workers.”
As the economy grows and the stock market is booming, real income remains flat, she said. “People feel like, ‘OK, there’s a boom and I’m being left behind. People are really feeling the unfairness of it all.’ You see that in tech and you see it in Detroit.”
Part of the reason Detroit brings a unique credibility to the discussion is because of its history as the world’s most innovative city back before 1930 – pushing the boundaries of mechanical engineering, design, production, labor and wages.
“You think about Ford’s $5-a-day wage,” O’mara said. “I teach students how Detroit invented weekends and the five-day workweek. They found new ways to increase productivity, scale up and deliver great products.”
Phoebe Wall Howard
Grueling physical labor
And it has been the “compact” between organized labor and the automotive industry that has made so much possible, observers say.
“We don’t have big factories in Sil