By Peter S. Saucier
General Motors operated a plant in Moraine, Ohio, where it inherited the International Union of Electrical Workers (IUE) as part of a conversion from a Frigidaire plant to a truck manufacturer in 1981. Through the automobile crisis of 2007-08, the IUE worked with GM and cooperated with every plan, well before the United Auto Workers (UAW) ever did. Still, the Moraine plant suspended operations.
As GM used tax recovery money to revive the automobile business after 2008, it cut deals with UAW for return to work of UAW represented employees that excluded the laid off IUE represented employees from Moraine. Only UAW workers returned to fill jobs. According to the Wall Street Journal, the White House reaction to the buddy stabbing by UAW of IUE employees was, “Operational business decisions at GM and Chrysler, including on issues about how facilities were operated and staffed, were made by the companies themselves.” Accountability is a precious, but rare, gem.