There They Go Again

The United Auto Workers do not seem to know when to stop. Having cowed Chrysler into submission, struck American Motors and General Motors, and won from Detroit's Big Four the biggest wage and benefit settlement in history, it might reasonably be presumed to be satisfied. Yet last week, while the last workers were returning to G.M. after a 31-day strike that cut October auto sales 27% , U.A.W. workers at Ford launched their own strike. Ford and the union reached a strike-free national settlement in September, but have been quibbling ever since over local nonwage issues. When the deadline set by the union arrived, 27,000 workers marched out at nine Ford manufacturing and assembly plants, and the threat of a strike hung over two other plants that were operating without contracts.

In the niggling that has been typical of auto negotiations this year, bargaining broke down over the fine print in the contract-seniority rights, job assignments, paid washup time, added protective clothing. The primary sticking point was overtime schedules; the union demanded that they be equalized and that workers not getting their fair share of overtime during a certain period should be paid the equivalent amount in cash even if they had not worked any overtime. Ford would have none of this, and the strike was on. It immediately cut Ford's passenger car production by 16% , its truck output by 34%. Its continuance not only would threaten the industry's fond hopes to run up another record auto year, but could trigger the dampening reaction in the economy that economists have been fearing since the beginning of the labor negotiations-which have certainly turned out to be more difficult and unpleasant than anyone could have expected.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.