"The Barking Dog" issue #51, dated March 10, 2003

put out by Caroline Lund, a member of UAW Local 2244 at the NUMMI plant in Fremont, CA

War and the UAW

Millions of average people throughout the world have marched against Bush’s war on Iraq, but our union still takes no position.

The UAW opposed the Vietnam War, but not until May of 1970, when UAW President Walter Reuther sent a telegram to President Nixon saying the following: "On behalf of the UAW I wish to convey to you our deep concern and distress. . . . Your decision to invade the territory of Cambodia can only increase the enormity of the tragedy in which our nation is already deeply and unfortunately involved in that region. . . However this dangerous adventure turns out militarily, America has already suffered a moral defeat beyond measure among the people of the world. . . . At no time in the history of our free society have so many troops been sent to so many campuses to suppress the voice of protest by so many young Americans. . . ."

I called the UAW International headquarters in Detroit to ask whether our union had taken a stand on Bush’s war. A staff rep told me the union has no position.

However, he said UAW secretary-treasurer Elizabeth Bunn spoke at the Detroit antiwar rally on Feb. 15, and that many locals have come out against the war: Local 600 (Ford), Local 909 (GM), Local 1700 (Daimler-Chrysler), Local 1981 (Writers Union), and Region 9A.

Hopefully we will not have to wait till the end of the war for the UAW to take a position.

Caroline Lund

3-In-180 Petition "Worthless"?

On Jan. 22 Chairman Art Torres put out a leaflet in the plant denouncing the petition that was circulated by many people (from both caucuses, and independents) against the new company attendance policy of 3-in-180.

You would think our Chairman would be glad that so many members (1,345) took the time to circulate and sign this petition. I know pretty much everybody in my group signed it. We are all feeling the pressure of this terroristic attendance policy.

But no. Art Torres used our dues money to put out a leaflet telling us that "unauthorized" petitions "will not sway this Management one iota." He called our petition "a feeble attempt to put pressure on the arbitrator." Art is supposed to REPRESENT US!

Art attacked me for making a motion in the Executive Board to send the petition along with the grievance to help convince the arbitrator. But the entire Executive Board voted for my motion.

It’s sad to say that probably the company and arbitrator will take our petition more seriously than our union Chairman does. (That is, if they ever even see it.)

C. L

Leader Boards-2

No more Team Member letters. Mr. Beltran has taken the boards in a new direction. He has started posting economic data. Unemployment figures, new car sales, and related bad news. What’s your point, Mr. Beltran? Is this some sort of scare tactic?

We are all very aware of the current state of the economy and how the auto industry in general is doing. Yes, we are all very fortunate to have such good paying jobs. But lets look at your data a little harder.

At Ford Motor, your previous employer, sales are down, losses are up.

What’s the problem at Ford? Lean Production or as they like to call it at Ford, the Ford Production System. Sound familiar? Yes, a bastard child of TPS and a devastating mistake for Ford that has resulted in product recalls, lawsuits and lots of bad publicity.

While the auto industry as a whole did poorly last year, Toyota made a record profit. In spite of the depressed economy, both here and in Japan, Toyota made more money than any other year in their history and more than any other auto company ever.

We didn’t get here because of luck. We got where we are through hard work. We do not sell a lot of cars because they are the cheapest. In fact, our vehicles sell for a premium over comparable models. We sell a lot because our vehicles are the best. This company is successful and your scare tactics are inappropriate and based on irrelevant data.

Yes, Mr. Beltran, we are all very fortunate. But you know who’s lucky? You are the lucky man Mr. Beltran. Like a rat leaving a sinking ship, you bailed on Ford and climbed aboard the ship that we built. You got a free ride to the top. Try not to screw it up by instituting Ford’s failed policies.

Tom Burton, Coordinator DXB22T
www.autoworker.org

Speed-up and Cut Jobs

Were you at the Goals and Objectives meeting? What they said is beginning to unfold as you read this article. But will it really help quality, improve team member morale, or even improve efficiency?

We all know cutting jobs creates problems and overload of work. It will just travel its way down the line for more time needed for repairs. Running the line faster will increase accidents and injuries. All jobs that can no longer get kaisen just have to work faster as the line moves faster.

Speeding up the assembly line means there is an increased demand for our product by our customers. Takt time change should be to meet our demand, not to increase injuries to team members burdened with so much work to maximize profit set by management for them to offset losses.

Everybody knows that cuts of team members from different departments and groups is astronomic. These team members will be sent to wherever, to an open slot in the plant. This will mess up the transfer system and also cause a lot of confusion.

Such massive numbers of team members needing to be retrained again to a new job will push quality down and defects up.

I can’t believe that our Union has not fought to keep these jobs from being cut. Jobs are outsourced and now cut. Some people in our Union are not doing their job. We should remember not to vote for anyone not involved in helping to keep our jobs and numbers where we are.

Eyemen

Tired, and Hands Sore

The day after the one-second line speed increase in Passenger, my G/L asks the group how it was. When some T/Ms voiced their opinion that they could "feel it," the G/L ignored the comments and went on and told us that she never heard anything bad from anyone and it was "not that bad" and that "you can do it."

So far, there have been NO improvements to make our work more efficient for the line speed increase. The only thing they did was to redistribute the work load.

But that means that someone else has MORE work in addition to the speed increase. I was told about kaisen over and over in orientation, but I have yet to see any evidence of it. I would think that kaizen would be MORE important during a line speed increase. Since the speedup the only thing I noticed is an increase in the number of defects in my group, with a threat from the G/L to write up people for those defects.

One of my jobs was already overloaded to begin with. With the speed increase, they took an element out; but still, I can only do the job at full speed (running) for about 1 hour. (An hour and 45 minutes if I hide a bottle of Gatorade nearby and take a swig during any downtime).

For the rest of the rotation I have to pull the cord or have my T/L help me out. I get tired, my hands get too sore from the snapping motion, then I run into "the wall" (there’s no "hole" to work in) and have to pull the cord and end up missing 2 cars just to catch up and then the process starts all over again.

Of course, in February there will be another second taken away. But it’s not just another second, as this second will be more than the last in terms of percentage of total time available. I don’t even know what the current takt time is, but just for example, let’s say it’s 60 seconds. One second divided by 60 is 1.66% of total time. The next second taken away is one divided by 59, which is 1.69%. The next will be 1/58=1.72%. See how each second missing is greater than the last?

Team Member in Trim 2

Gym at NUMMI?

At the Goals and Objectives meeting it was said that NUMMI was thinking of building a gym for employees use. A coworker suggested to me that management should take the cost of that gym and use it to add one person to each assembly group. That would help the bodies of members much more than a gym.

Reno Trip Revisited

Last week Johnny Gonzales put out a flyer in the plant accusing me of distributing an excuse letter for Johnny and others to take time off for "union business," which they apparently spent in Reno.

I had nothing to do with that flyer. I pledge to the membership that I have never and will never put out an unsigned or falsified flyer. I am against such practices because they hurt the union. I did write about the excuse letter in Barking Dog #48 and #49, but I never even mentioned Johnny Gonzales’ name.

I (together with Tom Burton) wrote to UAW Region 5 Director Jim Wells asking, "what guidelines the UAW has for the granting of time off work for union business. . . ."

Our intent was not to "crucify" anyone. We did not "demand an investigation."

We merely sought clarification on the following: "Does the President have the right to excuse people for trips (even if not paid for by the union) without bringing it to the Executive Board and Membership? Does the President have the right to keep what he considers ‘union business’ secret from the Executive Board and the Membership?"

We wrote this letter after I asked Tito Sanchez at the Oct. 2 Executive Board meeting whether he had sent the excuse letter in question and what union business the members were going to do on those dates. He replied that he didn’t have to answer that question and that he didn’t have to get approval from the Exec. Bd. to give people time off for union business.

I never charged that Johnny took union money for his trip.

In his flyer Johnny quotes International Rep Earlie Mays saying he searched NUMMI Labor Relations and could find no excuse letter like the one circulated in the plant.

But why did Brother Mays have to go across the street to the plant? Why didn’t he just go down the hall to the Local 2244 office and ask the secretary (Judy Wilson) whether Tito had indeed asked her to type the letter and send it to NUMMI?

Or why didn’t he just ask Tito whether the letter was genuine? At the Executive Board meeting, Tito would neither confirm NOR DENY that he had the letter sent.

Again, we members will draw our own conclusions.

C.L.

Correction

In the last Barking Dog there was an error about management bonuses. Several group leaders told me they did not get anywhere near what I had reported they had got.

But another thing I learned from various group leaders was that they are told not to tell anyone how much their bonus was. So I guess we will never know how much they all got.