Free for whom?

While the Secret Trade Deal of 2007 has been put on the back burner for now (see David Sirota's great coverage, there can be no rest in the fight to replace the word free with fair when it comes to international trade agreements.

The thing is, however, "free" trade is just a buzzword, because it bears a real cost for about 99% of the American populace. And in this week's most prominent example, it's two and three year olds footing the bill that makes corporate heads of outsourced labor-produced goods so rich:

Mattel, the maker of Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels cars, is recalling nearly one million toys in the United States today because the products are covered in lead paint.

According to Mattel, all the toys were made by a contract manufacturer in China.

The recall, the second biggest this year involving toys, covers 83 products made from April 19 to July 6. Many of them feature Sesame Street and Nickelodeon characters — including the Elmo Tub Sub, the Dora the Explorer Backpack, and the Giggle Gabber, a toy shaped like Elmo or Cookie Monster that toddlers shake to hear giggles and funny noises...

...This is Mattel’s 17th recall in 10 years. Most recently, an infant swing made by its Fisher-Price division was taken off the market because of a risk children could be trapped in its moving parts. And in its largest consumer action involving toy safety, in 1998, the company recalled more than 10 million Power Wheels cars.

Tom Friedman's world is flat, I suppose, because his precious no holds barred, anti-regulatory, anti-safety and anti-worker trade policies steamrolled over pets, children and manufacturing workers. Or maybe it just slowly poisoned them.

Holding onto the kingmaking card

Labor unions are always an important constituency and power broker in the Democratic Presidential primary, but with the rising tide of populism nationally and especially within the party, organized labor will have even more muscle to flex than usual.

To this end, they're being patient, waiting as each of the major candidates makes their respective pitches to leaders and their ever growing public pro-worker pronouncements. Most publicized (though perhaps not as important as all the union hall stump speeches that will occur over the next months) will be the AFL-CIO sponsored debate, hosted by Keith Olbermann and featuring questions from (gasp) actual union members and not mainstream media infotainment blowhards.

As per today's NY Times, AFL-CIO and Change to Win national leadership aren't rushing to make any endorsements:

The A.F.L.-C.I.O. is unlikely to endorse Mr. Edwards or anyone else before the primaries, several labor leaders said last week, because unions are so divided over the candidates.

Several unions that like Mr. Edwards are wary of endorsing him because he lags well behind Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama in the polls.

“There’s a pretty strong sentiment across the labor movement for Edwards,” Steve Rosenthal, a former political director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said. “But I think some unions are a little leery of endorsing him without more evidence that he can win.”

Another reason many unions are hesitating to endorse a candidate is their overall happiness with the eight hopefuls. Several back universal health coverage, a major union goal. All have endorsed labor’s main legislative priority, a bill that would make it easier to unionize workers.

“This is a pro-worker field of dreams,” said Bruce Raynor, president of Unite Here, which represents hotel, restaurant and apparel workers. “The field is much better from a worker’s standpoint than it was four years ago.”

Putting aside the actual candidates for a moment (though I'll get back to them), there are a few pros and cons to this approach. On the pro side, it pushes campaign rhetoric more and more pro-worker and populist, and extracts some campaign promises you may not have heard otherwise. This was the case when the AFL-CIO made Al Gore sweat in the lead up to the 2000 primaries. It also prevents the union for casting their lot with someone who doesn't get the nomination, potentially putting them in a tail between legs situation for a brief moment before the person who does win the nomination realizes how badly they need unions' organizing and get out the vote efforts, regardless of any animosity created by supporting someone else in the primaries.

The latter situation arose with a number of unions backing Howard Dean early, and feeling a bit foolish when he flamed out after Iowa. The AFL-CIO as a whole didn't endorse anyone until way late in the game, when it was pretty likely Kerry would beat out the only challenger left, John Edwards.

My question is, what's an endorsement good for if it comes after the dust has largely cleared? I'd imagine backing a winner from the start would pay off much more than backing one when they've virtually won the primary, and the risk-reward on backing the wrong guy is slanted significantly towards the reward.

We talk about the candidates vying for support from this big game-changing machine, but for all the might and muscle the unions could provide, especially in early voting states (in addition to Nevada, 1/3 of Iowa Dem. caucus goers are union members, as are 1/4 of NH primary voters), why would candidates bother to work for endorsement if there is none coming? Soon enough, they'll be playing their hand for too long.

And it's not just pure political gamesmanship. If the unions believe their organizations are so powerful and game changing (and I agree that they are, I have seen it first hand), why not emphatically endorse and go all out for the candidate you like best and feel will support your cause the most? Why end up settling for whomever everyone else picks, when most of the time that candidate will be less populist than they'd like because labor, the real working persons' voice in the party, is sitting out?

There is no clearer picture of this than what is happening in this race.

Mr. Edwards has been by far the most aggressive in wooing labor. He spent a day in April working alongside a nursing home worker at the behest of the Service Employees International Union, and he has marched alongside striking Goodyear workers.

“If our board voted today, it would be leaning toward Edwards,” Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers, said. “He showed up at a Goodyear picket line. He just called and said, ‘I’ll be there.’ That kind of stuff really rings home with our members.”

Unite Here, the Teamsters and the steelworkers were leaning toward Mr. Edwards. A Unite Here endorsement would be a boon in Nevada, because its Las Vegas local has 40,000 members and could dominate that state’s Democratic caucuses.

Edwards has been on this since January 1st, 2005, and not just rhetorically. He fought alongside minimum wage campaigns, walked picket lines, full throatedly backs labor in all his speeches and has the most detailed, populist plans to help rejuvenate the working economy. And, as the quotes show, that's not just coming from me.

I don't think there is any more vocal proponent of labor and workers than John Edwards. And regardless of my personal feelings about the candidates, which I am still sorting out, how labor could not throw their full weight behind him is beyond me. This isn't Dennis Kucinich or Mike Gravel. John Edwards is third nationally, creeping up on Obama; and winning Iowa as Clinton and Obama fade a bit. And with Nevada and New Hampshire so unionized, as well, this is a chance for labor to really flex its muscles and push their top choice to the nomination. Why just sit around and wait to see what shakes out and then serve as a huge volunteer network and ATM for whomever the nominee is, regardless of whether they like him/her or not?

Bush threatens to sign endorsement of discrimination

Of all the ballsy things the President likes to do and say, this may take the fuckin' cake (and reflects his "let them eat cake" attitude).

Last month, Rep. George Miller and 93 co-sponsors introduced the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. It would restore anti-discrimination protection for workers after the Supreme Court spit in the eye of established law and blatantly lied to further a class warfare ideology when they handed down its decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.; they unashamedly misinterpreted and reversed the intent of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The Court ruled that Ledbetter, 19-year employee of Goodyear that was systematically discriminated against, was ineligible for compensation because she had not filed suit within 180 days of the actual decision to discriminate against her. This was a blatant distortion of the intent of Congress when it passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and a disregard of thirty three years of its application. Why did they bother even pretending to interpret the law? It was clear to everyone how they were going to decide the case.

In his continued ideological assault on workers’ and civil rights, President Bush has threatened to veto the bipartisan Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act if passed into law. And while his hand picked Supreme Court has already exposed his ideological bias against worker protections like Title VII, the President’s statement of explanation of his threat brazenly misrepresents the bill while contradicting itself within the same paragraph.

President Bush said in his statement:

…H.R. 2831 purports to undo the Supreme Court’s decision of May 29, 2007, in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. by permitting pay discrimination claims to be brought within 180 days not of a discriminatory pay decision, which is the rule under current law, but rather within 180 days of receiving any paycheck affected by such a decision, no matter how far in the past the underlying act of discrimination allegedly occurred. As a result, this legislation effectively eliminates any time requirement for filing a claim involving compensation discrimination. Allegations from thirty years ago or more could be resurrected and filed in federal courts.

President Bush’s representation of the bill is patently false and misleading. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is intended to close an apparent loophole that, until this recent Supreme Court decision, had never been used, let alone recognized, in the 33 year history of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The new bill would simply and explicitly state that a discriminated employee may file a grievance within 180 days of the issuance of a paycheck that is impacted in part or in full by a previous decision to discriminate.

The bill also calls for the awarding of, at most, two years worth of back pay to those who have proven to be discriminated against for a long period of time. No where in the bill is there a provision for an unlimited statute of limitations on the period of time that can elapse between the discriminatory act and the filing of a grievance. The assertion that “allegations from thirty years ago or more could be resurrected and filed in federal courts” is flatly false, and he no doubt knows it. But that's no surprise, given his ability to stare truth or facts in the face and, all the while with a big smile on his face, do whatever the hell it is he wants, anyways.

A veto of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act would signal support for a broken labor market that is more and more unfriendly to working families, minorities and especially women. Wielding the veto pen on this law would be a written endorsement of a job market that pays women just 77 cents for equal work at equal positions as men.

It's really hard for me to grasp the sheer audacity of his consistent, full bore dismantling of our entire history's worth of social progress and hard earned rights. In eight short years he has not just stopped the path towards a more fair and just society in its path, he has used his faux cowboy boot to kick it backwards to the Hoover administration.

Clearly, his statement is filled with bold mouth lies, but still, I can't imagine how he can pretend to justify this. He should really just come out with the truth for once and say, "I don't give a shit about workers, women, minorities, children, the sick or the needy. Or brown people." I'd really honestly prefer that to the constant vertigo spin his administration puts on things.

Ford's double edged Q2 profits

Having lost $12.6 billion last year, conventional wisdom saw Ford as the most suffering and needing of concessions from workers in the contract talks that began this week. So while executives and shareholders may be celebrating, the timing of this news may just shift the entire context of negotiations:

Ford Motor Co. today reported a net profit of 31 cents per share, or $750 million, for the April-June period — a stunning improvement from the net loss of 17 cents per share or $317 million during the same second-quarter period a year ago.

The surprise second-quarter profit ends seven quarters of losses, with improvements in all of the company’s core automotive operations. Ford’s total results for the first half of the year now stand in the black, at $458 million.

Talk about bittersweet news for a company looking to close plants, cut jobs and wages and massively reduce retiree healthcare benefits. And even the press, stenographers of Big Three press releases of late, put two and two together:

The positive performance suggests Ford could be much further along in its Way Forward turnaround plan than many believed. That plan is slated to close 16 plants, eliminate 44,000 jobs and revamp the company’s lineup in the crucial North American unit, with a goal of profitability in 2009.

The report notes that Ford was able to "get consumers to pay more", which is probably not sustainable. But they added a cool two billion to their cash reserves, and they are looking to sell their Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo brands, each of which should net a pretty penny. And after the gold calf they build for Alan Mullaly, there should be plenty of left over dosh to invest in research and development -- it might take a lot of high powered scientists to realize that you need to offer hybrid vehicles in more than just SUV form, like Ford does with the Escape.

Look, this doesn't put the UAW in the clear; there is still a long way to go for a company that took out $20 billion in loans last year. But all that premature talk about the necessity of huge huge concessions may look a bit foolish.

Also of note:

DaimlerChrysler AG’s Mercedes Car Group saw its earnings improve by 72% in the past three months compared to the second quarter of 2006, the company announced this morning.

The luxury automaker earned nearly 1.2 billion euros ($1.65 billion) in the second quarter of this year and has posted earnings of 2 billion euros for the first half of this year.

Coincides nicely with the rise in CEO pay.

Local News Roundup

See the dams we can burst by electing just one pro-labor executive in a red state?

More than 10,000 child care providers in Kansas and Pennsylvania won collective bargaining rights this month when the states’ governors signed executive orders guaranteeing the workers a voice on the job.In Kansas, Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D) signed the executive order granting bargaining rights to some 7,000 state licensed and regulated home child care providers. The state then certified the workers’ choice to join Child Care Providers Together Kansas/AFSCME, capping off their six-month drive for a voice at work.

This continues the trend of executive orders to guarantee service workers representation, especially child care workers. As the AFL-CIO pointed out, it happened in PA for 4,000 under Gov. Rendell's orders; in NY for 60,000 child care workers in May under orders from Gov. Spitzer; in December for 40,000 in Michigan; and also in Oregon, NJ, Iowa, alifornia, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio and Wisconsin. (Coincidentally, or probably not, al of those states but one, Minnesota, have Democratic governors).

Specifically, those working in child care jobs are absolutely crucial to the nation's future, and deserve the respect, fair pay and guarantees that should come with such a vital role in society. On a larger scale, as economy moves more and more in the direction of interpersonal "service" jobs, we've got to break down the walls early or face a forever-long struggle.

---

Fremont school district employees looking for improved contract:

On behalf of 371 district employees, Service Employees International Union Local 1021 — which represents bus drivers, groundskeepers, cooks and other classified workers — is asking for unspecified raises, health benefit changes, an extra floating holiday and increased time off for various reasons.

Other requests include increasing the mileage reimbursement rate, cutting the length of time it takes to qualify for longevity pay and increasing the amount of that pay, and reducing from three to two the number of years a disciplinary action remains on an employee's record.

The union also is asking the district to pay the full premium on a health plan for an employee and his or her spouse if the worker retires early. The arrangement would continue until the employee reached age 65.

I know from personal experience that oftentimes devious education entities like to try to bilk workers by calling them academic employees, when the reality is that, as much as individuals may enjoy working in the educational environment, for financial and contract purposes, they are workers who happen to be in an academic setting. This comes up oftentimes in the fight for employers to contribute to an unemployment fund for summer vacation, when workers are mainly off (though they are required to come in often at random times) but not off long enough to find a job to make up for loss of income. This may not be the case here, but it's really just an example of things schools try to pull.

To be fair, oftentimes schools don't have a real steady flow of income to lavish on workers, so in many ways they are set apart from big business in the selfishness category, but I don't know that that is the case in Fremont.

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Always active Minnesota Labor Scene (it's even in the name of the party, Democratic Farmer and Laborers) applauds minimum wage increase, but correctly points out that much more is needed:

"It's a long overdue first step," said Eliot Seide, executive director of AFSCME Council 5. "But someone who earns $5.85 an hour brings home only $12,168. That person is still poor."

If the minimum wage was adjusted for inflation, it would be $9.27 an hour today, said Kris Jacobs, director of the JOBS NOW Coalition. And that wage would still not be enough for many people to make ends meet, according to the organization's annual "Job Gap" study.

Many of the working poor, she noted, live in greater Minnesota, where more than one out of four jobs pay less than $9.27 per hour.

....

Patricia Wingo, co-chair of ACORN in the Frogtown neighborhood, said her organization's members will benefit from the wage increase, but want to see more.

"There is no middle class anymore – only rich and poor," she declared. Families are struggling with higher health care costs and food and gas prices. They work longer hours and spend less time with their families, she said.

"We can eliminate poverty in a generation by lifting the minimum wage to a livable wage," said Seide. "We can eliminate the phrase 'working poor.' Everyone who puts in an honest day's work should receive a fair day's pay. Full-time workers should earn enough to feed, clothe and shelter their families. We are the richest nation on the face of the planet and we can do better."

Damn straight. Check this out (thanks to Center for American Progress):

--

While UAW struck an agreement with Delphi, the IUE-CWA, with fewer members, isn't taking things lying down:

The IUE-CWA union said it has filed a contract termination notice with automotive-parts supplier Delphi Corp., the first step in allowing its employees there to strike if no deal with the company is reached.

The IUE-CWA represents about 2,000 Delphi employees. Delphi already has finalized a deal with the United Auto Workers union, which represents the vast majority -- about 17,000 -- of its hourly workers.

Steelworkers and some other smaller unions, adding up to 3,000 employees along with IUE-CWA, are probably not getting the same kind of offers that the larger UAW got, a theory supported here:

Past union bargainers have noted GM typically is reluctant to give the union and other unions the same terms it negotiated with the larger UAW, forcing the smaller unions to take steps to push the issue.

And all this comes amid a tempest over temporary workers, otherwise known as unfortunate and abused pawns in forcing unions to make big concessions:

Besides roughly 240 temporary workers getting about $10 an hour with no benefits, Delphi Packard has a handful of former workers who returned at the lower rate after taking buyouts, plus a number of skilled trades workers.

John Fisher, a temp from Warren, said Plant 14, where he makes spark plug wires for General Motors Corp. and other automakers, is virtually all temporary workers, as is Plant 10, both in the North River Road Complex.

‘‘Does the company realize the plant will be shut down?’’ he said. ‘‘We’re bargaining chips.’’

Ohio stepping it up, and other action

I'll readily admit that I am a true blue Democrat, but the big D is not the only thing I care about when I'm looking to support a candidate. As we saw throughout the 90's and early 2000's, populist, pro-worker messages can be misleading; look no further than the DLC-backed Clinton era.

Slick Willy could talk up a storm about "workers getting the shaft" (actual line from his '92 convention acceptance speech), and while he a few things for working families (and his record is magnified by the pure hatred of workers of this administration), the whole Robert Rubin-Hamilton Project nexus did a lot of things that ended up giving workers the same shaft they decried, in the name of fiscal responsibility and whatever other centrist buzzwords they used. And a whole generation of Democratic Senators did the same.

Of course, unions turned out big for these candidates, because they were promised big things, and anyways they were better than Republican alternatives. But for all the work labor did in fundraising and GOTV, from NAFTA to welfare reform, the return on investment wasn't very high. And soon enough, triangulation and corporate trade policies and giveaways to insurance companies led to voters tuning out the faux-populism of Democrats, not believing a word they said, and voting angry (and Republican). Words without deeds do not make for a lasting majority.

Enter 2006 and a new wave of populism sweeping the nation after six dismal years of a Bush administration whose Secretary of Labor sees workers as lazy and dirty -- literally. This time around, it was more important than ever to have right candidates; candidates that would really stand with labor, so to speak. For a perfect microcosm of this, check out Ohio 2006.

The two major candidates for office in Ohio, Reps. Ted Strickland for Governor and Sherrod Brown for Senator, both entered Congress in 1993. Every year since taking office, both put together 100% voting records on the AFL-CIO yearly report card, while voting against the most recent free trade giveaways, giving them veritable fair-trade records (though that's treated as a bad thing by CATO, the one doing the scoring on this particular issue). They both had 100% from the American Public Health Association, advocating for better Medicare benefits and, in Brown's case, stumping for healthcare as a right way back in the 90's. In short, these were real pro-worker Democrats.

The populist Democrat is that once rare species in the midwest and American heartland, for a long time replaced, at least in Senate and Governor campaigns, with the cautious, triangulating Democrat the DLC thought had the best chance of winning, if they could only blur the lines and smear the colors a bit between red and blue. Like I said, given the horrible state of the economy under King George II, as well as a particularly toxic environment for Republicans in a state that had given re-election to Bush just two years before, there was a huge opening for Democrats to reassert themselves, if only they could show some backbone. Strickland got 60% of the vote against veritable nutbag J. Kenneth Blackwell (he of voter discrimination and chairing the Bush campaign in Ohio while serving as Secretary of State, in charge of Ohio elections), while Brown took down incumbent Mike DeWine 56-44.

Labor has been longtime supporters of Brown and Strickland, and that certainly didn't change this past fall. And finally, a mixture of that toxic environment and some actually ballsy, populist candidates produced a long-awaited pro-worker generation of state-wide officials. And it's already producing dividends. First, from Senator Brown:

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio introduced a bill last night to reform a 19-year-old federal law designed to give notice to workers losing their jobs.

Mr. Brown took action a day after a Blade investigation found the law is so full of loopholes and flaws that employers repeatedly skirt it with little or no penalty.

The Worker Adjustment Retraining and Notification Act, or WARN, requires many employers to notify workers 60 days before they close a plant or lay off dozens of employees.

•Increase the notice period under the WARN Act from 60 days to 90 days.
•Require companies to abide by the WARN Act if 25 or more workers lose their jobs in a plant closing. The current trigger is at least 50 workers.
•Require employers to provide notice if 50 to 99 workers are laid off, and those who lose their jobs represent one-third of the full-time work force.
•Mandate notice if 100 or more workers are laid off. Currently, companies that lay off 500 or more workers must provide notice.

•Give the U.S. Department of Labor and state attorneys general authority to enforce the WARN Act.

•Increase the penalty for violating the law. Workers who did not receive a 90-day notice would receive benefits and double the amount of back pay for the 90 days. The current penalty is up to 60 days.

•Require employers to provide written notification to the Labor secretary of major layoffs and plant closings.

This is something many worker advocates have been agitating for for years, and is a simple act that returns fairness to a law that has sliced and diced by unfriendly courts and rich companies that decide to pack up and ship jobs overseas every single day. And now Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, opportunist as ever, are signing onto the bill; having a guy like Sherrod Brown in the Senate is proving crucial in moving the debate back towards what's good for the vast majority of working Americans.

And as for Strickland, among other things:

With a wave of his pen this week, Gov. Ted Strickland handed the increasingly powerful Service Employees International Union a golden opportunity -- the chance to increase its Ohio membership by about 25 percent.

The SEIU, which doled out $134,800 to the Democratic governor during his successful campaign in 2006, will now have the chance to organize about 7,000 home health care workers working as independent contractors for state government.

That's thanks to a Strickland executive order handed down Tuesday, giving those workers the ability to unionize should they choose to do so. Previously, those workers had no right to collectively bargain under Ohio law.

During remarks at an impromptu Statehouse news conference yesterday, Strickland shrugged off those questioning his motives.

"I'm just doing what I think makes sense, [what] is the right thing to do for my value system and my point of view and I can't control what others may say my motives are," Strickland said.

The governor framed the issue as a matter of fairness.

"The people who provide these in-home services deserve the same opportunity to have representation that the workers who work in the nursing home facilities have," Strickland said. "I think this can actually contribute to increased quality, training standards and the like and will lead to good outcomes.

And, as a WaPo E.J Dionne Jr. column out today shows, this kind of down-home populist Democratic politics wins:

At a moment of festering polarization in national politics, Strickland is Mr. Consensus. He doesn't hide his progressive views -- he calls himself "pro-choice, pro-labor and pro-universal health care" -- and yet just about everyone thinks of this ordained Methodist minister as a moderate because he spends a lot of time in places where Democrats don't dare venture, offering soothing sentiments you're unlikely to run into on talk radio or the Internet.

...snip....

What might Democratic presidential candidates learn from Ohio? As a matter of style, Strickland suggests they must understand that "people are desperately wanting to believe that political leaders understand them and that they are trying to deal with their day-to-day lives." Memo to overly cautious candidates: Strickland also thinks that "the display of genuine emotion is important."

Substantively, Strickland says the economy matters most, although he has been a strong opponent of the Iraq war from the beginning. "The foreclosure problem is huge," Strickland says. "The people are desperate for jobs." He sees health care and education as central -- they were the key issues in his recent budget. These questions "ought to give Democrats a leg up," but only if they can "talk about these things in a way that gets people to believe you will do something about them."

As David Sirota often hints at and I've been screaming, real populism wins elections, especially in places like Ohio, where corporate trade policies as well as 1% of the population tax breaks have ravaged the economy. If we can find and support candidates that stand up for workers and those struggling to make a living in this new economy, there is absolutely no reason at all for anyone in states like Ohio and Kentucky to vote for a Republican. If we triangulate and allow the impression that we're floundering, weak and stand for nothing, people might just say screw it and start to vote their "values", which get defined by candidates taking advantage of Democratic impotency.

Let's hope the Strickland/Brown election provides a guide for the party nationwide.

Another Big Week

This is the crux of this coming week's battle:

The Detroit automakers' U.S. market-share declines against Toyota, Honda and other overseas companies contributed to a combined $15 billion in losses at the three automakers last year. Most of the deficit has been in North America.

Industry leaders such as GM Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner say the health-care gap puts his products at a cost disadvantage against the Japanese. Gettelfinger has said the Detroit automakers are losing share because they've failed to design attractive products.

As I've mused before, I'm just curious as to how many car buyers go into a dealership and decide to be a Japanese car because Toyota's labor costs are lower?

(It's actually amazing to see this rare mention of the union's side of the story, not buying the whole line about healthcare costs being the reason why the company's sales are so way down And given the more than generous rare mid-contract concession in 2005, this is outrageous:

Under those agreements, UAW-represented employees at GM and Ford diverted pay increases to fund retiree health care. Also, retirees were required to pay as much as $752 a year for family medical coverage.

At GM, 60 percent of UAW members voted to ratify the accord. Only 51 percent did so at Ford. Ford's UAW Local 862 in Louisville, Kentucky, Gettelfinger's home local union, rejected the agreement. The UAW declined to extend similar concessions to Chrysler in 2006. That issue will now be part of the negotiations for a new contract.

The 2005 health-care agreements aren't likely to be the last word on the subject. Mulally said in April that health care will be on the table again in the talks that start today.

Here's the thing about labor costs. The only legitimate reason to want to lower your labor costs is to be able to invest in innovation and massive change. But that doesn't seem to be on the radar of the big three; increased stock price and a less damaged profit is.

Regarding innovation, this hits it on the head:

It's all about SUVs and hybrids of course (yes, it is also about legacy health care costs to pensioners as well). Both Ford and GM made so much money on gas-guzzling SUVs--because consumers loved them when gas was cheap--that it lulled them into falling behind in innovating new gas-saving engines. Toyota took some old battery and engine technology, souped it up and started producing real cars with hybrids. Ford and GM didn't because, as Bob Lutz put it, he didn't see a "business model" in the hybrids.

Sure, but business models for innovative products and technologies don't always present themselves at first. Selling books on the internet was the breakthrough application for Amazon. Who knew? Selling ads on search engines? Google just announced that its third quarter profits zoomed sevenfold. Old fashioned mainstream media on Yahoo and other portals? That's what's happening.

The Detroit car companies are failing at product innovation in a big way. Yes, there are some great cars coming out of Detroit (the Pontiac Solstice is terrific). And there is innovation in services--GM's OnStar makes millions for the car company. But the mindset is clearly not one of taking chances on new technology or radically new products. Business models are never clear at the start of something new. They evolve in the process of innovating. But you first must take reasoned and resonable chances--and have some forward-looking ideas. Oil prices have bounced up and down over the past four decades. It was reasonable to assume, as Toyota and Honda did, that gas prices would one day bounce up sharply. And they prepared. Toyota is on its third generation hybrid. Ford is on its first. The Prius is the hottest car off the lot these days, according to J.D. Power.

But of course, they'll go back to the well, go back on promises and ruin communities instead of actually trying to compete. Here's a reminder that their workers are real people:

Michigan Truck is down to one shift and has about 1,400 hourly employees, producing about half of the 1,000 SUVs it made daily back in the good times. Ford has fared about the same, borrowing billions to restructure as gas prices rose and consumers shifted from its SUVs and trucks to more fuel efficient models.

At the age of 40, Giles is confident in the vehicles his plant turns out, but he has worries. He's afraid the trucks the plant make will end with the 2009 model year, although Ford isn't saying anything about their future. Giles isn't totally sure about his pension like he once was, and yes, it bothers him that his company is living on loans.

"Whenever we have to borrow money, that kind of scares us," Giles said.

That's why he urges fellow workers to keep track of costs, because he says it's necessary to help the company.

When he started with Ford 19 years ago, Giles said he knew it was a good, stable job that would help support his family. Giles, who is married and has three children ages 21, 18 and 17, lives in a nice community near a lake about 60 miles north of the plant.

He now makes around $30 per hour plus overtime. Early on, it was always reassuring to him that he'd have a secure pension, but with Ford's financial troubles, he's not so sure any more.

"I didn't think I'd ever have to worry about that," he said.