By BRIAN S. AKRE AP Auto Writer
DETROIT (AP), AUGUST 13, 1999
General Motors Corp. has signaled to Wall Street that it expects the United Auto Workers to make a stronger push for wage increases in this year's contract talks with Detroit's automakers.
That would mark a shift from previous negotiations in the 1990s, when the union sought relatively benign wage hikes in exchange for job security. It means automakers may have to give workers more of their growing revenues to ensure labor peace, a change that has some on Wall Street fearing a possible inflationary effect on the U.S. economy.
At a recent meeting with about 40 major investors and analysts, GM chairman Jack Smith said the UAW felt it missed out on this decade's real wage growth and would likely place a higher priority on wage increases this year, according to investor sources who attended the meeting and spoke on condition of anonymity.
GM declined to comment. ``It's our policy to negotiate with the union behind closed doors, which means we don't intend to begin negotiating in the public, with the media or analysts,'' spokesman Tony Cervone said Friday.
The UAW did not return phone calls for comment. But the strategy expected by GM is in line with the collective bargaining resolution the union approved last May, arguing that its members deserve a larger share of the profits that GM, Ford Motor Co. and the Chrysler unit of DaimlerChrysler AG are making on U.S. sales. The automakers are on track to set an annual record for earnings in 1999.
``These staggering profits and the market inroads the Big Three have made justify our demand for real wage gains over the course of the next agreement,'' the resolution said.
The current three-year contracts expire Sept. 14.
Analyst John Casesa of Merrill Lynch & Co., who did not attend the Smith meeting, said there is some concern on Wall Street that automakers will be so fearful of a strike in a booming market they will give too big a wage increase.
``The biggest concern is that they're going to sign a contract that's going to not just spook the auto industry, but spook everybody to say, `Geez, it's inflationary,''' Casesa said.
Labor professor Harley Shaiken of the University of California at Berkeley said auto contracts historically have set wage trends for the nation because of the industry's size and the attention the deals receive. He said he wouldn't be surprised to see a larger wage hike this year.
Negotiations began in June and will intensify around Labor Day, when the UAW is expected to target one company to negotiate an economic package that will set the pattern for all three. Before the unexpected death last week of the UAW's chief negotiator with DaimlerChrysler, Jack Laskowski, conventional wisdom was that the UAW would select DaimlerChrysler.
Now analysts suggest Ford might be the lead company. Ford's good relations with the union are being tested by its talk of spinning off its big parts unit, Visteon Automotive Systems Corp. The union opposes a spinoff and has set a national strike-authorization vote for Tuesday to drive that message home.
entnommen aus: /apc/labr/newsline; erstellt vom: labornews@igc.apc.org