The Virginian-Pilot, April 30, 2006, Sunday

The Virginian-Pilot
April 30, 2006

When Ford goes, blue-collar institution likely to go with it: UAW Local 919
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=103699&ran=173663

By JEREMIAH MCWILLIAMS, The Virginian-Pilot © April 30, 2006

NORFOLK –– United Auto Workers Local 919 is fighting for survival.
“If there’s no Ford, there’s no union here, because there’s no one here to represent,” said Doug Porter, who has worked at the union hall as a bargaining committeeman since 1995.
Local 919 dates to World War II at Ford Motor Co.’s Norfolk Assembly Plant, which the company plans to close in 2008.
The local represents about 2,600 hourly workers at the 81-year-old plant and at the local facilities of three parts suppliers. Local 919 is the second-largest industrial union in Hampton Roads, behind the United Steelworkers of America Local 8888 in Newport News, and had more than $1 million in assets last year.
Local 919 added 444 members between 2001 and 2005 on the strength of organizing drives at companies doing business with Norfolk Assembly, which produces the F-150 pickup truck, Ford’s hottest-selling product.
But workers and union officials seem uncertain on how much the union local can do – if anything – to reverse Ford’s decision to idle the plant. Representatives from the international union, rather than local officials, will take the lead in crucial contract negotiations with Ford next year. Uncertainty also swirls around the benefits packages Ford may offer its idled employees at Norfolk Assembly.
“Ford’s got the basketball in their court,” said Chris Kimmons, president of Local 919. “We’re still saying we’re trying to turn this around.”
The strategy of the Local 919 leadership is to make the plant as indispensable as possible. Tommy Schuster, a Local 919 bargaining committeeman, said that means improving the quality of the F-150 built in Norfolk, even as Ford moves ahead with its closing plans.
“The fight’s going to be at the 2007 negotiations,” Schuster said. “The more we’ve improved on quality, the more leverage we’ll have, the better bargaining position we’ll have to keep our plant open.”
Until then, Kimmons said, he plans to persuade workers to refuse buyout or incentive packages that Ford may offer them. Ford has not disclosed when it will unveil those programs.
“If we take packages and accept them, it says we accept what you’re doing to us,” Kimmons said. “I don’t know how strong our bargaining power will be – maybe it will be worse than it is now.”
Across the country, unions in general and the UAW in particular have lost members and influence in recent years. The UAW’s membership rosters have shrunk by 1 million members – to a post-World War II low of 557,000 – since its peak in 1970. Membership fell nearly 10.6 percent last year alone.
“That extra million gives you a lot more clout in politics and the economy,” said Harley Shaiken, a professor specializing in labor issues at the University of California at Berkeley. The UAW “remains a strong force, but weaker politically and in the economy.”
Virginia has a reputation as rocky ground for unions. Only 4.8 percent of workers in the state were members of unions last year, down from 5.3 percent in 2004, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“It’s difficult for us, because the companies have the right to fire people for no reason at all,” said Alton Glass Sr., president of the steelworkers’ Local 8888, which represents more than 5,700 workers in Hampton Roads. “It’s tough when state laws give employers the right to do that. ... Especially when you want a union but you need your job.”
In the auto industry, “union membership is dropping because Americans are buying fewer American cars,” said Lee H. Adler, who teaches labor and employment law at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations in Ithaca, N.Y. “They’re also losing membership in the parts companies, which send almost all their business to the Big Three.”
With Ford set to lay off as many as 30,000 workers and close 14 North American plants by 2012, the UAW has been playing defense, forced to cope with what the company dictates, said David Litt­mann , senior economist at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Midland, Mich.
The union is “definitely terribly reactive – that’s the problem,” Littmann said. “Whenever you’re in defense rather than out in front of the eight ball, you’re going to keep getting hit.”
In interviews last week, a number of union members shared that view.
“I agree with that 100 percent,” said Webster G. Clarke II, a team leader in the quality department at TDS/US , a parts transporter for Norfolk Assembly that employs about 160 UAW members at its Chesapeake facility. “If we don’t become proactive and continue to be reactive, then we’re going to face extinction.”
The UAW, which also represents hourly workers at General Motors and Chrysler, has not unionized Nissan, Honda or Toyota, except for a joint venture between Toyota and GM in California. Those “transplant” companies are some of the fastest-growing in the U.S. automobile industry.
“The power of the union is greatly diminished because it’s been unable to organize the transplant factories,” said Peter Morici, a professor of international business at the University of Maryland.
Two weeks after Ford announced that Norfolk Assembly would close, a mixture of resignation, frustration and confusion runs high among union members.
Ford workers are “quiet, upset, shocked – you name it, it’s in there,” said Kevin Rowe, a trim technician at Norfolk Assembly, as he took a lunch break in the union hall. Outside the break room, a faded paper sign reading “America works when you buy American” graces an RC Cola vending machine.
Local 919 members’ frustration is not only directed at Ford, but at their international union leadership as well. Thomas Quick, an 11-year veteran of the trim department, expressed a common sentiment that union leaders were caught unprepared for Ford’s announcement.
“The disappointment is that the decision was made, and now we’re being reactive,” Quick said. “It’s harder to stop an object in motion. They’re supposed to keep us informed.”
Kimmons, who returned nine days ago from a previously scheduled union conference in Chicago, also was disappointed by the international’s initial response. On April 12, the day before the Ford announcement, he called top union leaders after hearing rumors of the closing. His calls were not returned until the next day, he said.
Some union members speculate that contract negotiations next year could lead Ford executives to change their minds on at least some plant closures. That happened in 2003, during the last full round of Ford-UAW negotiations. The company temporarily reversed its decision to close a Hazelwood , Mo., plant that built the Ford Explorer and Mercury Mountaineer and instead closed a plant in Lorain , Ohio.
Still, the last sport utility vehicle rolled off the Hazelwood assembly line in March.
Local union leaders “keep saying they want to do something, but it’s out of their hands,” said Calvin Williams, who installs speakers in F-150 trucks and battled Kimmons in last year’s presidential election at Local 919. “There’s not a lot we can offer to change Ford’s mind.”
News researchers Kimberly R. Kent and Maureen Watts contributed to this report.
Reach Jeremiah McWilliams at (757) 446-2344 or jeremiah.mcwilliams@pilotonline.com.