Once-Mighty UAW Yields to Market
The UAW has agreed to further concessions as a part of restructuring plans submitted to the government by General Motors and Chrysler yesterday. The plans include further layoffs, as well as wage and benefit reductions ? all of which will modify union contracts ratified in 2007. Negotiations over reducing health benefits for retired UAW employees are said to be underway as well. Such dramatic concessions from what used to be the most powerful union in the United States has opened the floor for speculation on what sort of effects this might have on labor and unions as a whole. Some believe the current situation will be used by employers as a warning not to form unions; other suggest that the current economic recession will revitalize the labor movement.
See "Once-Mighty UAW Yields to Market", V. Dion Haynes, The Washington Post, February 17, 2009