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The Detroit Free-Press: UAW boss: The worst is upon us.
The article is less than a page long; you should read it.
My mind is flooded with figures of speech.
- First, I think back to Clinton’s post on our discussion of postmodernism:
The phrasing of “normative projection” is fairly typical language for a structure resembling an ego-ideal (for instance, Lacan describes the ideal self-image of mirroring as “the statue in which man projects himself”). This is to say that the definitions, whatever their content, will function as either the ideal to which art aspires or the frame from which particular works witness themselves departing.
I might analagously say, then, that the phrasing that “the challenges… need farsighted solutions” is also typical language in a statement meant to prepare a membership already burdened with several decades of cutbacks for the fact that these will accelerate and continue.
- Second, this leads me to reflect on a moment in Roger and Me (far from my favorite film) when an autoworker complains that the Union has gotten weak.
I think, well, yes and no.
No, because any organization with a half-million (generally well-informed and voting) members – you could say the entire population of Denver, has an amount of political clout. No, because the United Auto Workers has expanded in a way that has come to take in numerous locations, enhancing their influence abroad. And more importantly, because the union has expanded to take in disparate industries, from freelance writers to academic workers.
Additionally, one must consider that Roger and Me was filmed between 1986 and 1989, in the middle of the first “drastic” round of GM cutbacks. Moore was presumably asking questions about his response to the sit-down strike (they seem directed to ask whether another would be a good idea). Comparing those two Unions; the compact, aggressive, and single-minded entity of the late thirties with the complex, tentacled creature of today is not quite fair. The UAW has had to change in order to remain relevant; had it not done so, other unions would’ve made up the difference and the UAW itself would remain significant as the Union that gave the others the nudge they needed.
But these qualifications cannot account for what probably prompted his complaint in the first place: then, and now, the UAW is essentially besieged. It has given ground on most of the issues that called for its formation in the first place, and if has gained one kind of versatility by expanding into other fields, or “legislative credibility” by taking a more negotiated stance with in its industries, it has sacrificed the versatility of acting unencumbered.
Quite simply, the quote from Roger and Me suggests a union on the retreat, and while Gettelfinger may speak of longterm changes (and the union isn’t so docile that it will pass up a strike against a too-greedy Delphi, if the latter refuses to give sufficient ground), but the address itself, if sincere enough, seems like well stamped-out ground.
To suggest what I’m hinting at, the article on Gettelfinger’s report concludes with: “There’s only one way to avoid a destructive, downward spiral from taking hold — and that’s to organize.”
Organization has been the Union’s charter from the beginning; or specifically, using organization and consensus among workers as a way of exerting influence on their common companies and policies.
If, as Gettelfinger says, “the challenges we face aren’t the kind that can be ridden out” (and I believe the he is correct) and if as he says, organization is key, no statement can be anything but a stump statement that does not propose what changes, what farsighted solutions to resort to.
The UAW leadership and rank-and-file need their imaginations and ingenuity now as desperately as any organizational vigor.
END OF POST.