RE: Auto companies and the Anti-worker Ideology of Business

[jdoggett <jdoggett@kent.edu>]

Then my question becomes, from whose perspective?

I do not see unions being opposed to business.  The unions in your examples 
are very ready and willing to assume control of the firm and operate it as a 
business.  They are willing to engage in production, sell their product, and 
act as employees/owners.

However, if one sees the situation from the perspective of the business owner, 
then exclusion might be the case.  Perhaps business owners are opposed to the 
idea of unions owning and operating the business.  It would seem so from your 
examples in that the business owners, despite being owners of defunct firms, 
forwent the sale of the company to a legitimate buyer in favor of giving the 
firm away.

I think that perspective is important.  Seeing the opposition and trying to 
understand their arguments would be helpful.  It does seem ludicrous that an 
owner would forgo receiving compensation for assets rather than give them 
away.  Perhaps this is why someone is a known fugitive?

I think that the issues that you provided are important in that they highlight 
differences across geographic locales.  If I understand correctly, then the 
instances that occurred in Korea could not happen in the United States.  
Assuming that the Korean company was in default and in bankruptcy, then 
legitimate purchasers have rights.  The union would be such a legitimate 
buyer.  Giving the company away would be unlawful.  Perhaps Deborah Olson 
could comment on this topic given that she is a lawyer.


At 06:51 PM 2/9/01 +0100, you wrote:
Despite recognising that my role in this discussion is that of 'Moderator',
I cannot resist responding to the twin discussions on (a) auto companies as
targets for worker buy-out and (b) institutionalized conflict between
management and union, as mentioned by Joe.

1.  Recently, I have been involved in promoting and closely following an
attempt by the Daewoo Motor Union to bid for its failing  company in Korea.
The history is fascinating.  The company has been bled dry by its
mother-company (Daewoo Heavy Engineering) and its former CEO is now on the
run from the authorities for alleged involvement in a huge accounting fraud.
(Last seen, by the way, on a Miami golf course, so US friends please keep a
look out for Mr Kim Woo-choong!).

So far as capital equipment goes, however, the company is streets ahead of
most other major producers, with several brand new development facilities
and some technically advanced designs.  It just has no cash left, through no
fault of its product or its workforce.

Enter General Motors - offering to take the company off management's hands
for nothing, less half the personnel, to make it an operating base for GM's
Asian expansion.

Unsurprisingly, the Daewoo Motor workers felt they could do better than this
and have opposed the deal.  They have tried to open discussions with
management on a union-led buy-out alternative that would save the main plant
and most jobs.

Management refuses to take any such proposal seriously coming, as it does,
from the workers.  They would rather give the company away to GM and
increase the concentration already very apparent in this industry.

2.  In another recent case, the remnants of a once-proud British Steel
industry - now a joint British/Dutch venture called CORUS - are under
pre-terminal threat through the closure of one big plant in South Wales and
massive job cuts everywhere (following many years of constant job erosion).

A union-backed bid to buy the threatened plant - patterned on the ESOP deals
that have given some relief in the US steel industry - has just been turned
down by the company.  NOT, as one might think, because it was not
financially viable or sufficient, but because, in the company's words "to
invite additional competition in the present market would totally undermine
the objectives of our proposed restructuring".

In this case the response is clear evidence of a violation of competition
rules - 'we won't produce and we will make sure noone else can'.  But apart
from that, it does demonstrate exactly why there IS, in fact, a conflict of
interest between management and workforce inherent in many cases of company
closure in the present phase of CAPITAL CONCENTRATION.

And the essence lies in those last words.  Worker ownership runs counter to
the trend for capital and market concentration and will naturally be opposed
by big capital holders.  Unless labor begins to understand this concept and
fight for its rights to own capital as well as receive a wage, the race to
private monopoly ownership of the means of production and therefore the
monopoly right to determine terms and conditions of labor will simply be
hastened.

Vic Thorpe