A New Deal for Auto Workers?

Can the UAW forge a new model for its members?:

New Engine Plant Marks a New Deal For Auto Industry, by Amy Joyce, Washington Post: ...[T]he Global Engine Manufacturing Alliance, or GEMA, a joint venture among DaimlerChrysler AG, Hyundai Motor Co. and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. designed to be dramatically different from traditional auto and parts plants. Here, old labor rules that restricted workers to one -- and only one -- job, that designated work on either day or night shifts, and that required employees to plow through lines of management to fix a problem were tossed out like an old, rusty carburetor. ... GEMA, which opened in October, "is betting on cooperation with a union to succeed," said Harley Shaiken, a labor professor at the University of California at Berkeley. ...

A national agreement with DaimlerChrysler means that covered employees at GEMA receive the same pensions, wages and benefits as at other plants. Union leaders have bought into the need to change work rules. "We have to change with the times," said Nate Gooden, a UAW vice president. "My job is to try to catch up with Toyota. ...," ... "We cannot continue to continue like we did in the past," Gooden said. ...

GEMA wanted to make the engine for 50 percent less than other engines. In the six-year GEMA contract, teams of workers share responsibilities. They know one another's jobs and change duties throughout their shifts. That allows any team member to work on any part of the operation, "and all are fundamentally skilled," Coventry said ... "Anyone anywhere can do anything at any time." ...  The employees are "really the key to running the business," he said. "It's a big cultural shift not only for us but for the industry." ...

UAW-represented employees at the plant, who earn $21 to $30 an hour, must have at least a two-year technical degree or similar experience, which David E. Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research, said is becoming the norm in the industry. "The idea that you could be a third-grade dropout and earn a salary in manufacturing is no more," he said. Every team is made up of about six people, rather than the more typical 25, with one mechanical and one electrical engineer per team. In traditional manufacturing scenarios, engineers sat apart from the assembly line. Workers typically had to halt the line and wait for an engineer somewhere else in the plant to find and fix the problem. "We no longer have this boss-subordinate relationship," Ewasyshyn said. Gooden put it simply: "They work in groups. They do job rotations. It takes the boredom out of going to work every day doing the same job. It's something we should have done a long time ago." ...

Gooden said he had resistance to the new approach at GEMA from local unions that "thought everything was going to be the same" as at other plants. But he dismissed their balking as simply a refusal to change with the times. "I told them this was a new age and a new way of doing things. I said, 'Just be patient.' If the people who get hired there like it, it will trickle down to you, too."

I'm not sure I see how this labor reorganiation will contribute significantly to the desired 50% cost saving, but I hope it works.