From: ae547@yfn.ysu.edu (Ronda Hauben)
Subject: UAW Welcomes Auto Factory of Despair - PRB #1001(Part 4 of 4)long
Reply-To: ae547@yfn.ysu.edu (Ronda Hauben)
Organization: St. Elizabeth Hospital, Youngstown, OH
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 02:50:29 GMT


UAW Welcomes Auto Factory of Despair into Heart of Union Territory
         Public Review Board Case # 1001
             Part 4 of 4 

 
     On December 9, 1991, a followup story regarding safety 
conditions at Mazda was published by "Automotive News". (Record, 
pg 177)  In the article, UAW union officials are reported to say 
that workers at Mazda were no longer willing to report their 
injuries. 
 
     Quoting Phil Keeling, President of Local 3000, the reporter 
writes, "Mazda makes it very clear to everybody in that plant 
what's going to happen to them if they go to medical for a job-
related injury," Keeling said. "Their lives are going to be 
hell."  
 
     The reporter continued, "Workers claim the intimidation 
takes many forms. According to union representatives, workers 
and their lawyers, the company refuses to honor doctor 
restrictions, and the plant medical clinic does not give 
rudimentary treatment to workers with injuries the company 
disputes as work related. They also complain that Mazda assigns 
workers with pending workman's compensation claims to the most 
physical and difficult tasks on a work team and does not replace 
a worker with a disputed injury when he or she is on medical 
leave, forcing the team to take on the extra workload."
 
     The story reports the favorable MIOSHA decision returned in 
Appellant's case. The reporter writes:
      
     "In August 1991, the Michigan Department of Labor court 
     ordered Mazda to reinstate Hauben after determining that 
     Mazda violated the law `by discharging her in lieu of 
     providing a safe work environment'." (Record, pg. 177)
 
     The reporter then explained, "Hauben said, `Despite all the 
     talk about teams and the Mazda philosophy of encouraging 
     worker input into decision making...workers who speak out 
     are put into dangerous jobs, are injured, and then are 
     thrown out on the street'."
 
     The article went on to acknowledge that the kind of soft 
tissue injury that Hauben had been forced to suffer because of 
the dangerous working conditions at Mazda now plague the rest of 
the automotive industry. 
 
     In a Letter to the Editor published in Automotive News, 
January 27, 1992, Hauben wrote:
 
     "And though I initiated a union grievance against these 
     unsafe conditions in August 1988, I still haven't been 
     officially informed of what happened to the grievance. My 
     efforts to appeal all the way up to the international union 
     have met with a runaround with no effective means within the 
     UAW of criticizing this runaround. Meanwhile, safety 
     conditions deteriorate further.
 
     Thus, there is a need for workers to be able to bring 
     immediate and continuing attention to these dangeous 
     conditions and to be able to challenge trade union officials 
     who go along with management's actions."
 
     Her letter continued:
 
     "Because of the difficulty of getting management and union 
     officials to be responsive to complaints from the shop 
     floor, UAW sit-down pioneers found they needed access to 
     their own uncensored press to make their compalints public.
 
     "But in 1951, the UAW international leadership ruled that 
     workers are not allowed to have access to their local union 
     newspapers to criticize union leadership or decisions of the 
     international union leadership. As long as the UAW continues 
     to deny workers that right, management will continue to let 
     problems fester rather than correct them."
                         (Record, pg 184)
 
     Still not getting any decision on her appeal, on March 27, 
1992, Ronda Hauben once again wrote to the International 
Executive Board (UAW) requesting a hearing before her appeal was 
decided. Recounting some of the history of the UAW that she had 
learned from sitdown pioneers and from reading old issues of 
their uncensored press "The Searchlight," she wrote:
 
     "At every step in the process of trying to grieve or appeal 
     the grievance within the UAW I have found that the 
     International Union has no regard for its own procedures 
     that are outlined in its constitution or that have grown out 
     of its history....
 
     "However," she continued, "in fact as GM's recent 
announcements of massive layofs and plant closures shows, the UAW 
actions do have an effect. And other large and small companies in 
the U.S. will also lay off workers or close factories as their 
actions are modeled on those of General Motors."
 
     Then she explained:
 
     "The UAW was formed after a long and hard fight on the part 
     of workers and other progressive people in the U.S. to gain 
     some kind of control over monopoly corporations like General 
     Motors that dominate not only the U.S. economy but the U.S. 
     government as well. Pre World War I newspapers like the 
     National Rip Saw and the Appeal to Reason demonstrated 
     through many exposures the unbridled power that these 
     monopoly corporations had. But no force was found to be able 
     to challenge that unbridled power. It was only with the 
     victory of the Flint Sit Down Strike in 1937 that a force 
     was discovered that could help to oversee arbitrary acts of 
     a corporation like General Motors."
 
     The account continued:
 
     "By 1942, some of the pioneers of the Flint Sit Down 
     strike were very disappointed with their union. Workers had 
     stopped coming to meetings. These sit down pioneers felt 
     that unless some way could be found to keep the membership 
     informed of the details of what was happening on the shop 
     floor and active in the affairs of the union, the union they 
     had fought so hard to win, would be lost. Also, they saw no 
     sign of the principled and independent spirit that had built 
     the UAW. The result was that workers started a union 
     newspaper where the effort was to allow workers to debate 
     their differences and to criticize their union officials. 
     The newspaper was to be the Voice of the Shop Floor, not the 
     Voice of the Incumbency. Based on the program of an 
     uncensored local union newspaper, workers began attending 
     union meetings again, and the rank and file of the union 
     discussed and debated the issues facing them. But by 1950, 
     the International leadership decided it could not allow 
     criticisms of International Union Officials to be aired in 
     local union newspapers, nor did it want differences with the 
     ideas and views of the International Union leadersip aired in 
     local union newspapers. The International Union leadership 
     set in motion the machinery to censor the local union 
     newspapers. The 1951 UAW Convention in Cleveland, Ohio 
     placed a rubber stamp of approval on the policy of press 
     censorship over the local union newpapers of the 
     International Union."
                    (Record, pg 188-9)
 
     The letter to the International Executive Board explains how 
the irrational treatment that Ronda Hauben's grievance and appeal 
have gotten are similar to the policy of censorship carried out 
by the International Union over local union newspapers. She 
explains:
 
     "The treatment my appeal has received from the International 
     Union is very much like the censorship of local union 
     newspapers. It proclaims that the International Union is 
     free to do whatever it wants, that it is above the 
     International Constitution and the historical experience 
     that it took to build the UAW. That the International sits as 
     judge against the worker who has his grievance on appeal, 
     just as it sits as censor for the articles that might appear 
     in a local union newspaper."
                              (Record, pg 189)
 
     The Letter to the International Union continues:   
 
     "The uncensored local union newspaper was intended as a 
     support of the grievance procedure so that grievances could 
     be made public and heard in the court of public opinion if 
     there was trouble having management deal with them. That 
     union structure has been denied by the International union 
     and the appeal process thus can be made into a dummy procedure 
     with no light shown to clarify the effects on the membership 
     of the union or the society by the violations."
                              (Record, pg. 191-2)
 
     In a letter dated April 1, 1992, Ronda Hauben was informed 
of the decision of the International Executive Board with regard 
to her appeal. They rubberstamped the fabricated dismissal of her 
appeal. However, they now enclosed a copy of a letter they asked 
a union official at Mazda, Jim Mamalakis to write. The letter 
dated January 24, 1992 (Record, pg 183) recounts a conversation 
that the administrative assistant to the President of the UAW had 
with this union official purportedly on October 14, 1991. The 
union official claims that he refused to write up a grievance for 
Ronda Hauben against her team leader Charlie Hayes. The problem 
with this account is that Ronda Hauben never could have written 
a grievance against Charlie Hayes because as a team leader, not a 
supervisor, he was a fellow union member, not a member of 
supervision. And the testimony that Ronda Hauben gave under oath 
at the Department of Labor hearing made clear that it was the 
supervisor John who had done the write up and reprimand of her. 
 
     The International had produced no evidence to back up its 
dismissal of her appeal. Instead it produced an obviously 
fabricated letter, procured long after the 10 days after the 
appeal was submitted when the Local Union was to submit all 
pertinent information to the International Union. The statement 
was not on union stationary, nor was it a sworn statement, and it 
claimed to have been created in response to a phone call by the 
administrative assistant to the President of the UAW. It is 
undated, but there is a date scrawled on the top of the copy that 
accompanies the record in this case.
 
     Also, the letter is not from Bill Judson, who was the Union 
official who had sent Ronda Hauben the form to submit the written 
grievance to the International Union. The form is from another 
union official who is denying that Ronda Hauben submitted her 3 
page write up to the union or to management. But management had 
already stipulated at the Department of Labor Hearing that it had 
received the 3 page write up of the initiation of the grievance 
procedure, which at Mazda is called a Problem Resolution/ 
Complaint Procedure.  
 
     Also, due to the fact that this supposedly crucial piece of 
evidence was never presented at the appeal that went to the local 
union, there was never a chance to challenge this evidence. 
However, more importantly, it demonstrates that the International 
Union will arbitrarily and irrationally concoct any case that 
serves its ends of denying due process and democratic 
procedures to workers trying to challenge dangerous workplace 
conditions through the grievance procedure.
  
     Also, in its dismissal of charges, the International Union 
claims that the NLRB said that it didn't have to process all 
grievances. But the NLRB is not allowed to rewrite a union 
contract which specifies that at Step 2, the Union must write the 
grievance if the member requests it. The language explicitly 
explains:
 
     "If the employee wishes to pursue the matter, the Union must 
     file a written complaint with Labor Relations on mutally 
     agreeable forms provided by the Company within five (5) 
     working days of the Step 1 (B) meeting" (Article X, 2, 2, pg 
     18 of the contract)
                              (Record, pg 169)
 
     The other evidence the International Union offered was some 
of the statements of confusion regarding what happened to her 
grievance that Ronda Hauben had expressed in the many letters she 
wrote to the International Union. 
 
     None of the documents requested by the International Union 
regarding the real handling and disposition of the grievance or 
appeal were produced with the record. Those documents, include:
 
     1. All records in the Local Union pertaining to the matter 
     from which the member(s) desire(s) to appeal;
 
     2. Copies of membership meeting minutes where any action has 
     been taken on the appeal and underline in red that portion 
     which deals with this particular appeal;
 
     3. Copies of any transcript or testimony;
 
     4. A detailed statement setting forth the reasons which 
     caused the Local Union to take the action in connection 
     with the member's appeal;
 
     5. Copy of appellant's grievance;
 
     6. Date the grievance was withdrawn;
 
     7. How and when when the grievant was notified of the 
     settlement; and 
 
     8. Any other documents or material relative to the matter 
     and/or statements the Local Union may wish to present on its 
     behalf in answer to the appeal.
 
     Also, there is no account how the International Union, 
supposedly part of a due process procedure of evaluating the 
action of the Local Union regarding the Appeal on the Handling 
and Disposition of Appellant's grievance, how it could ignore the 
lack of any record on the case on the part of the Local Union and 
discount the great bulk of record submitted by Appellant and 
verified by both reporters who interviewed Hauben and the Admin
istrative Law Judge who conducted a fact finding hearing and 
determined that the account presented by Ronda Hauben was 
credible and material.
 
     Also, the letters twice sent to the Local Union by the 
Internaitonal required:
 
     "It is imperative that the information requested be compiled 
     by the Local Union and sent to my office with an ORIGINAL 
     AND THREE (3) COPIES (four copies in all) WITHIN TEN (10) 
     DAYS FROM RECEIPT OF THIS LETTER."
 
     Yet the International Union, by its decision in this case, 
demonstrates that it will reward a local union for failing to 
comply with its requests and will fabricate a decision in favor 
of the local union. 
 
     And if the International Union finds too substantial a record 
on the issue that the appeal is submitted on, it will arbitrarily 
and irrationally change the issue. Thus its own statement of 
the issue of the appeal, which included an ethics charge against 
an Officer of the International Executive Board, was the 
folowing:
 
     RONDA HAUBEN, Member, Local Union 3000, appealing the May 
     21, 1989 Local 3000 membership action regarding the handling 
     and disposition of her `grievance of August 23, 1988 and 
     amended versions'.
                              (Record, pg. 119)
 
     However, this issue was never ruled on, and thus the whole 
process of an appeal becomes a Kafka like experience which 
demonstrates the purposeful cruelty of those who gain office when 
there are no institutions or practices capable of challenging 
their unbridled misuse of their powers.
 
     This is precisely the situation that existed in Eastern 
Europe before the recent crumbling of government structures. 
Similarly this is the problem the Flint union pioneers warned was 
a source of the destruction of any democratic structures or 
independent spirit in the union they fought so hard to build.
 
     The issues of the grievance that are on appeal before this 
body are very important issues in the preservation of a workforce 
that can produce the goods and services that make the wealth 
of this society. In a Supreme Court decision rendered many years 
ago, the Judges of that high court explained why workers must 
have the support of the government in their battle with their 
employers. The Court wrote:
 
     "Though reasonable doubts may exist as to the power of the 
     legislature to pass a law, or as to whether the law is 
     calculated or adapted to promote health, safety, or comfort 
     of the people, or to secure good order, or promote the 
     general welfare, we must resolve them in favor of the right 
     of that department of government. 
 
     The Court goes on to explain why:
 
    "The legislature has also recognized the fact, which the 
     experience of legislators in many states has corroborated, 
     that the proprietors of these establishments and their 
     opeatives do not stand upon an equality, and that their 
     interests are, to a certain extent conflicting. The former 
     naturally desire to obtain as much labor as possible from 
     their employees, while the latter are often induced by fear 
     of discharge to conform to regulations which their judgment, 
     fairly exercised, would pronounce to be detrimental to their 
     health or strength. In other words, the proprietors lay down 
     the rules and the laborers are practically constrained to 
     obey them. In such cases, self interest is often an unsafe 
     guide, and the legisalture may promptly interpose its 
     authority.
                    (Holden vrs. Hardy, 169 U.S. 366 (1898)
 
     The Court continues:
 
     "But the fact that both parties are of full age and 
     competent to contract does not necessrily deprive the state 
     of the power to interfere where the parties do not stand 
     upon an equality, or where the public health demands that 
     one party to the contract shall be protected against 
     himself. The state still retains an interest in his welfare, 
     however, reckless he may be. The whole is no greater than the 
     sum of all the parts, and when the individual health, safety, 
     and welfare are sacrificed or neglected, the state must 
     suffer."               (Ibid.)
 
     Just as that high court ruled that workers must be protected 
by government coming in clearly and forcefully on their side if 
there is to be a healthy society, so the Public Review Board can 
only show its support for the present and future health of the 
members of the UAW and of the UAW itself by reversing the 
decision of the International Union dismissing the appeal in the 
case before the Board. As there is no legitimate evidence denying 
Ronda Hauben's appeals, and as there is a strong case in their 
favor, Appellant asks that the irrational decision of the 
International Executive Board be reversed and her appeals 
granted. 
 
     In a recent dissent by Member Weiler, in PBR CAse No 928, he 
wrote "This appeal raises important issues both about what 
constitutes fair treatment ... and also about the force of the 
Public Review Board's responsibility to ensure a `rational basis' 
in the Union's handling of contract grievances." (pg 15) Later in 
criticisizing the reasons given by the majority for its 
support for the actions of the International Union, Member 
Weiler, in concluding his Dissent explains: "And in my view the 
Public Review Board does the UAW no good in pretending that it is 
rational, in our administration of an internal appeals process 
that is supposed to be fair to the Union members and serve as an 
antidote to litigation over the duty of fair representation." (pg 
18)  
 
     Similarly as the documents in this appeal before the Board 
show, there has been a long and tortuous effort to fight against 
dangerous workplace conditions in the auto industry. To have the 
International Union side with management in depriving workers of 
their right to health and safety protection, both contractual and 
statutory, regardless of what irrational excuse the International 
Union dreams up to justify its failure, is dangerous enough. This 
case before the Board is case no 1001. Reading through previous 
public review board decisions, one is struck with how rarely the 
Board has the courage to challenge the decisions of the UAW. 
In decision, PRB Case No. 942, the Board wrote that "The UAW 
has, virtually since its inception, been in the forefront of the 
American labor movement in protecting the free speech rights of 
its members." (pg 9) This statement can only encourage the UAW 
International Leadership to continue its policy of censorship of 
the local union press and of hiding the history of the fight 
against such censorship by UAW union pioneers. In the same 
decision, the Public Review Board explains "The healthiest 
societies and institutions are those which allow and encourage 
debate over controversial issues." (Ibid) When the Public Review 
Board supports the International Union, as Member Weiler's 
Dissent in case number 928 pointed out, in its irrational 
activity, it is demonstrating that it has no concern for the 
health of the body whose conduct it is charged with reviewing. 
Thus the decision in this case will demonstrate whether there is 
any concern on the part of the Public Review Board for the health 
and safety of both the members of the UAW and of the body of the 
UAW itself. As Holden vrs Hardy pointed out many years ago, that 
"the whole is no greater than the sum of all the parts, and when 
the individual health, safety, and welfare are sacrificed or 
neglected, the state must suffer." Thus to protect the health of 
the body whose conduct it is charged with reviewing, the Public 
Review Board is duty bound to find in favor of the Appellant and 
rule that the dismissal of the appeal in this case on the 
fraudulent grounds of untimeliness is irrational and that the 
appeal regarding the handling and disposition of Appellant's 
grievance be reinstated and the International Union be charged 
with pursuing that grievance vigorously and also supporting 
Appellant in her efforts to defend her MIOSHA decision against 
any challenge. 
 

 
 
September 30, 1992
-- 
Ronda Hauben                    email address:ae547@yfn.ysu.edu
Amateur Computerist Newsletter              or
P.O. Box 4344                   rhauben@heartland.bradley.edu
Dearborn, MI 48126