From: goddard+@cs.cmu.edu (Nigel Goddard)
Subject: Re: Caterpillar and the Issue of Unions
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 92 15:22:49 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon

In article <1992Apr17.095922.10288@hasler.ascom.ch> kevinh@hslrswi.hasler.ascom.ch writes:
>
>In article <1992Apr16.140246.6484@cs.umn.edu>, prabhak@cs.umn.edu (Satya Prabhakar) writes:
>|> I have been following the struggle between Caterpillar and
>|> the unions over the last coupla weeks.
>
>Could you explain what this dispute actually is please, my father
>works for them in the UK but hasn't said much about this "struggle".

The recent history at Caterpillar is: around 1982 there was a long
and bitter strike (205 days) during which the company vowed to
break the union.  The union survived, and Cat management entered
a new era in which they encouraged suggestions and cooperation
from the workforce, and negotiated many work-related issues with
the union.  As a result, the union agreed to many work-rule
changes and introduction of new technology, and many worker
suggestions increased efficiency.  Cat increased it's market
share and is the dominant company worldwide.  Around 1989,
a new chief executive, Fites, took over.  In 1991, the current
strike began over Cat's refusal to follow the pattern agreement
set with John Deere previously.  Pattern bargaining is basically
a union method of removing wages and benefits from the competitive
arena.  The idea is to get all the companies in a given industry
to agree to the same wages and benefits, so that they will compete
on quality, efficiency, etc, rather than trying to beggar their
workers.  Cat refused to follow the Deere pattern, arguing that
Cat operates in different markets and repudiating the pattern
bargaining concept altogether.  Cat workers staged escalating
strikes over the last five months.  Cat management made a final
offer that did not follow the Deere pattern and chipped away at
the number of union jobs.  When the union rejected it, Cat
announced anyone who didn't return to work the following week
would be fired.  Most didn't go back (a few hundred out of 12000).
Unusually for a developed economy, US workers have a legal but
ineffective right to strike, since management can fire them if they
do.  Reagan championed the firing of strikers back in 1980 with
the PATCO air-traffic controllers strike, since when it has become
an increasing common management tactic (usually threatened, sometimes
used).  Cat started interviewing replacements, tens of thousands of
whom called and wrote.  Cat workers have an average of 23 years
with the company.  Many business analysts said Cat was jeopardizing
its future by firing the people with all the experience, and
Cat wages and benefits are only 6% of their costs, so it isn't
really a competitive issue (the main Japanese competitor, Komatsu,
pays higher wages and benefits).  The union said that Cat was
trying to break the union and the pattern bargaining arrangement
and that if Cat succeeded, the other companies they deal with,
like GM, Ford, Chrysler, would do the same.  Now the union has
agreed to call off the strike and hope negotiations succeed.
Cat refused to take the workers back the first couple of days,
but now say they will take them all back next week, minus about
10 "troublemakers" (probably union activists but I'm not sure).
Cat announced they will trim about 10-15% of union jobs by
attrition (retirement, resignations) over the next year or so.
According to media accounts, the business people see this as
a big victory over labor, further weakening the already pathetic
labor movement in the US.  The media say the Cat workers are
very angry with Cat management and won't forget this; they are
also angry with the union for having them strike for months only
to call it off with a deal that they could have had several months
ago.

My analysis: it's a setback for organized labor (and therefore
for every working person), and I think is indicative of what
the business leaders in the US want to see for the 90's, namely
competing globally by squeezing the domestic workforce.  Not
a pretty picture.  The trend is basically toward a Brazilian
style economy: industrialized, but with a small and very rich
elite, and a large and largely impoverished working population.
The one positive sign was that there has been solidarity action
by Cat workers around the world.  In South Africa they have held
one-day strikes.  The only way the stick of "global competition"
can be dealt with is by international organizing.

Nigel

-- 
Nigel Goddard
goddard@b.gp.cs.cmu.edu

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