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Respected UAW Leader Faces a Challenging Test
Contract talks start Friday between the union and Detroit's three automakers.
July 20, 2007— -- DETROIT - Ron Gettelfinger's five-year tenure as president of the United Auto Workers has been marked by a shrewd, tough, practical approach to saving automotive jobs and benefits
His biggest challenge is just ahead: Contract talks begin Friday with Detroit's three automakers, General Motors Ford Motor and Chrysler Group.
"I think he's certainly the right guy for this time," automotive consultant Ron Harbour says. "He truly wanted to understand the situation and the industry, and really has the best interest of everybody in mind, the success of the companies, the success of the union, and wants to make sure they all survive."
The challenge for the UAW is daunting. "The contract has to be transformational," says David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research. That means potentially life-changing concessions on the part of UAW members, who are used to some of the best wages and benefits in industrial America.
Cole says if anybody can achieve a soft landing for both the companies and the union, it's Gettelfinger. But it won't be easy.
Since Gettelfinger's days at Ford's Louisville plant in the 1960s and '70s, tough bargaining has been a way of life.
"I have never been in a set of negotiations that wasn't difficult, regardless of the times," Gettelfinger said in a recent interview with Detroit radio host Paul W. Smith.
Gettelfinger rose from the plant floor at Louisville to regional UAW director in Indianapolis to head of the union's Ford department in 1998 before succeeding the late Stephen Yokich as president in 2002.
Gettelfinger always has kept long hours and demanded that his staffers do the same. As a regional director, and later running the union's Ford department, he virtually banned the practice of staffers golfing on UAW time.
He sometimes held contract bargaining sessions that lasted 24 hours or longer. Even now, approaching age 63, he hasn't slackened his pace.
Richard Shoemaker, the retired UAW vice president who oversaw the GM department, said that on many mornings, he and Gettelfinger would arrive at the union's Solidarity House headquarters at 5 a.m. and still be there at 7 or 8 at night.
