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What changes should organized labour make to help attract companies to the region?
(MIKE)
How can unions assist and/or change to help ensure continued manufacturing jobs?
Start discussion regarding the market requirements:
Are local auto manufacturers making the right cars for a global market? Too many big cars and trucks that won't sell outside NA. Should we be making cars for markets in Europe, China, India?
Changes in manufacturing and competitiveness mean that we need to adapt our businesses locally and unions must recognize these changes and work with companies around them.
Example - Valiant Machine - building manufacturing cells that have robots that can run a line with only one operator. Firms need robots to be competitive but it means less jobs overall.
Example - mining sector in Sudbury - changes to improve efficiency reduced the number of jobs (primary and secondary).
Are people willing to change from what they know?
Opportunities to use liberal arts knowledge base to change "car culture" U of W three pillars include auto - we want to harness a whole new division of labour in car manufacturing to look at new ways of doing things
Perception in this region is one of a militant and inflexible labour group who don't care about the investor - right now we are the most expensive labour in world. According to Tony Faria (at U of W) our average auto worker costs $85K per year in benefits and $55K in wages. This is a huge cost of employees for the company. There may be a perception that any new investment to this area must match those rates (and this is not really true, but may be scaring off potential investors).
We don't have a much higher level of unionization than London, but we (City of Windsor) are perceived as being more "union". It is discouraging investment in the Windsor area. Many investors seek non union towns.
UAW has not addressed the social issues as much as CAW, giving CAW more clout politically. We have benefitted in Windsor from the high level of wages and it has given the city great economic spin-off. Corporations don't have the need to create social benefit - they are driven by focus on return on investment.
If wage levels are similar to other union towns, why is Windsor not attracting new business? New investors are deciding not to come here because of this perception of our workforce? View of unions may not be realistic
How can we help unions become more flexible in collective agreements? Reduce trade classifications and allow more efficiency. Example of Toyota with only two skilled trades and how it provides more flexibliity. (Not sure of source, but Toyota may not be the shining model once thought) Could we get the CAW to agree to those kind of changes? How does this compare to large CEO's bonuses? Is that fair?
If we can be more flexible, could this save jobs? Could cross training workers be a possibility? More use of groups to help vary skills? Why are we still not implementing this? Is it management? Is it union? Look at Germany and Toyota as examples.
Could unions promote a marketing strategy locally as more flexible? Remove perception that unions lead to inefficiencies. Get union leadership to start focusing on the positive contribution that they can make. Need unions to rebrand themselves. Let people know that the union is aware of the demands of the market place and if flexibility is an issue, we will come to a table. Balance the desire to protect all jobs with protecting most jobs. Companies are not democratic processes. Investors want a good return. What about the possibility of having union workers become owners - taking an investment position in thier plants?
Shift the focus from protection of jobs to making the whole firm more competitive. Get the union to take more leadership in this regard.
