Jobs and the UAW

DEPRESSINGLY FEW original proposals have been advanced recently for combatting national unemployment, which is now running at nearly 8 per cent and substantially higher for groups like women and young, urban blacks. While the nation experiences its worst recession since the 1930s--and the government's indicators last month implied things weren't getting much better--politicians have been singularly uninspired in providing new solutions. Even the Democrats can only promise the old-time faith of public works and, consequently, increased consumer demand. The Republicans, represented by President Ford, cling only to a mysterious faith that the current record profits reaped by big corporations will ultimately mean more jobs. So far this has simply not happened.

In this context, the proposals put forward by the United Automobile Workers in their just-concluded contract negotiations with the Ford Motor Company are an encouraging sign. Under the tentative agreement with Ford, auto workers will receive 13 paid days off per year, in addition to the 33 holiday and vacation days they already receive off. This section of the contract--Ford's opposition to it prompted the 22-day strike against the company on September 14--is a conscious first step for the union in its future plans for the auto industry. The increase in paid days off, union officials hope, will force auto industrialists to add more workers without wage cuts for union members already holding jobs.

The union did not win a complete victory by any means. The UAW had demanded what amounted to a four-day work week and the abolition of the attendance requirement--but the tentative contract states that a worker must be on the job the days before and after his or her scheduled day off to be paid.

But the experience at Ford teaches two important lessons. First, it lends yet more credence to the already convincing claim that high corporate profits do not lead to business expansion and more jobs. More profits in the auto industry have, instead, yielded an increase in corporate spending for capital goods and few new jobs. This phenomenon, repeated in other oligopolistic industries, explains the current irony of high profits and high unemployment in the economy as a whole.

This fact lead the UAW to make its demand for increased employment through paid days off the major issue in the negotiations with Ford. It is an issue that other unions in major industries will stress in their own contract talks--and justifiably. Hopefully, the proposal for more jobs through fewer hours for each worker--at no loss in pay--will gain support from left-liberal groups in political circles, and from a new national administration in January. For those who place the problems of working class and poor people above all others, the UAW initiative is a very welcome sign.