Ron Gettelfinger, president of United Auto Workers, speaks at his office about the need for Congress to grant a $25 billion loan to the Big Three carmakers. (Photo by Andre Smith)

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MICHIGAN CHRONICLE: What do you think about some Congressional members seeking to reopen the labor agreements in the Big Three bailout discussion?

RON GETTELFINGER: Well, first of all it’s a bridge loan, it’s not a bailout. The second thing is I’m sure that there are some members of Congress – the anti-union group that would like to see the agreement open. But the thing that they are not giving consideration to is the fact that in mid-term contract in 2005 and then in 2007, the union – the men and women of the UAW stood up and made significant changes in our contract. And those are ongoing changes. It’s not like the companies receive the benefit of everything and then walked away and the agreements stayed in place. And as a result of the changes it put the companies in a position where they are very competitive with the foreign brands.

MC: Do you agree with the assertion that the Big Three executives did not make a compelling case before Congress?

RG: I think, first of all, if you look at the hearing, everybody including myself went there not knowing what the expectation was. We are each given a total of five minutes to make a statement and then members of the Senate Banking Committee as well as the House Finance Committee were able to then ask questions. In the case of the House, each member of the House that wanted to ask a question had five minutes. But if they used four minutes of that time and then asked a question all you could do is answer it . . . And so it’s not like anybody was asked to make a case other than to say that there is a critical need for us to get this bridge loan that’s not brought about by the UAW, not brought about because of the [auto] industry, it’s brought about because of the economic downturn. You know if you look at the vehicles sales in this country we went from 16-17 million vehicles sales down to a seasonable rate during the month of October at 10.8 million. That’s dramatic . . . It came about because the consumers cannot get reasonable rates on loans. It came about because of the sub-prime mortgage issues. It came about because of Wall Street – the failure of the banks, it came about because of volatility in the stock market, the energy prices, the lack of consumer confidence. The fact that since December of last year we lost 1.2million jobs in this country, most of which were in the private sector. And if you go to the month of October alone it was 42,000. So there are a lot of other factors . . . The other piece of that is no one is talking about free trade agreements. Even the administration has made the point that they want the Korean Free Trade Agreement to be ratified. South Korea ships 669,000 automobiles to our country last year. Every manufacturer in this country, the Big Three and all the foreign brands sent back around 6,500. Now we are going to further open that market?

MC: Is Congress just giving a deaf ear?

RG: A lot of members of Congress understand the complexity of this situation and understand that it’s not just about the UAW, it’s not just about the Big Three, it’s not just about main street. It’s about the side streets in America as well. And that we have to find a way to fix this because of the dramatic impact that it’s going to have on our economy. Again I’d like to point out to people that the auto industry is 4 percent of our gross domestic product. And if you look at our industrial production, it’s 10 percent per value. So it’s a major part of our industry and the banks that have been able to go to Washington, they didn’t have to make the case. Nobody was out there criticizing the workers for what they made. They just gave them money.

MC: Do you think it was selective treatment?

RG: I think the people that go to work, get their hands dirty, the backbone of America are being treated differently than the bankers. Yes I do.

MC: Critics said you should have taken the people who would be affected most by a bailout failure to testify before Congress including retirees. Wouldn’t that have been a good strategy?

RG: Well, I think it would have been a great strategy except it’s flawed in one aspect. That is we don’t set up the hearings and we don’t say who gets to testify. If we are called before the Congress of the United States, we are the ones that have to go . . .   Again it is not a level playing field from a standpoint of where our companies compete there is a different way that the manufacturing companies are being treated than the finance companies or the banks. But we can’t control that no more than we can control the date and time of the meeting . . . I think it’s good that they have another opportunity to submit a plan. As I understand it they will have a 10-12 page plan that they will be giving on the [Dec 2] and it will have a backup plan of a 100 pages. And that needs to be because of the confidentiality of the business plan. So we got no problem with where we are at. We might have got kicked around a little bit, got little skin beat off our back . . . But we are ready to go back and make case again.

MC: What is your take on the question of fuel efficiency and clean energy?

RG: Well, you know we are there and we are working hard in that regard. I know what the industry has done because I’m privileged to go around to their product development centers. I was privileged to go to Chrysler along with vice president General Hollyfield in July and we drove the electric vehicles around the test track out there well before they introduced them to the media. General Motors has more vehicles on the road today that get over 30 miles to the gallon than any other manufacturer. They’ve got the two mode hybrid – the Tahoe. It does better. It got green car of the year award. It does better in the city on EPA, the mileage, than the I4 Toyota Camry. So here’s a big Tahoe and here’s a small Toyota Camry and in the city this vehicle [Tahoe] gets there. Ford has got the first hybrid out there in the SUV market – they are continuing to make improvement in it. They are all working very hard . . .  But the bigger issue is now: we find ourselves in a situation where the economy is in the tank. It has not just hit this country, it’s around the world. And other countries value their industry and they are looking at a way to salvage their industry to help them over these rough times and there is not one manufacturer in the world that hasn’t been impacted by what’s going on. . . Again, this is a loan. Now everybody uses the word “bailout” but it is not a bailout. It is a low interest bridge loan to help us over this rough spot in the economy . . . This fight is not about just UAW, GM, Ford and Chrysler. This fight is about America. This fight is about the average person out there. Where are people going to cut back if they can’t pay their bills?

MC: Are you disappointed with the way Congress reacted to Detroit in comparison to the rush to bailout Wall Street?

RG: Well, disappointed is not the right word. Frustrated is not the right word. I think that some people are very angry about this. But look, at this juncture we have to play the cards that we’ve been dealt. I don’t understand why there is a dual standard in play. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to anybody. I think this last move on Citigroup was adding insult to injury and certainly there’s got to be some play there. People have got to look at that and say “Hey, what’s going here. There is an urgent situation here where if we do not come away from Congress the week of Dec 8 with these low interest bridge loans from the auto industry, we will see the industry immediately react to that by going into collapse.

MC: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson comes out of Wall Street as a former Goldman Sachs chief executive officer. It did not take much to get the loans to Wall Street. Is the problem here about Detroit not having influence in Washington?

RG: Well, I think that’s part of the problem without question. The industry has lost a lot of influence. If you go down to Alabama, look at how much they subsidize our competition to come in here. And they make it very clear that they don’t want them to be union. So they attack that. That’s just part of it . . . And as you well know Wall Street for a long time has been regarded in a lot different light than what they are today because all of a sudden we are seeing all of these failures and these are supposed to be the brains of the economy – people that shuffle papers and make a lot of money doing it and move money from one account to another. But, again, there is so much misinformation out there about this industry and about our union. Perception is reality . . .  I’m hoping that we are starting to get the message out into the communities. All we can do is appeal to Congress to look at the issue and to make a reasonable determination. And if they honestly sit back and objectively look at it, they will make a determination in favor of the loan.

MC: It is clear that labor has a lot work to do. Are you up to the task?

RG: This is a job that has to be done. It is not our timeline. We are prepared to meet it. The more pressures on the companies, the more on us. I think one of the things we were able to do when we were in Washington was to make the case about the men and women of the UAW have done to help our industry. You know it is amazing people will come to us with something that was going on the sixties and the seventies. Those days are long gone. We negotiated our first joint programs with the company in 1979 from the standpoint of actually working together on a lot of issues. Over the years we’ve built on that by putting on different representatives. Even prior to that, the government had the apprenticeship program, which we worked out with the company jointly. So I’ve watched this thing evolve. For me I’ve been around a few years. This will be 44 years on Dec 17 for me. So I know a little bit about the industry . . . But I’m surprised that after all of our efforts to work together, most people focus on one thing: and that is if we have an altercation with the company. But it’s like people don’t want to recognize everything we’ve done together for our jobs, for our security . . . We have a great safety record not only from the standpoint of the employees- which is first and foremost- but just as important for the customer. We work hard to make sure that these vehicles are safe as they can possibly be. We have a lot of meetings with the companies. And if you look at our quality we set the benchmark in many areas, the same way with our productivity. We have some of the most productive plants in the world. So I’m a little disappointed that we haven’t done a better job over the years of getting our story.

MC: As a labor leader, how do you react to critics who say the problem among unions today is that the leadership of labor organizations is disconnected from their grassroots membership? There is the belief that labor leaders are very selective in the battles they pick and they don’t necessarily answer to the issues their members are facing sometimes in the workplace and always playing it safe. What is your reaction?

RG: Well, first of all, some of that is probably warranted. But I think for the most part our polling doesn’t show that. Our polling doesn’t show that we are disconnected. You know we have a very democratic union. We have our regional directors, our board members who are regional directors spread out across the country in 11 different regions. We got our officers and we interface with the leadership more than we do with the average member. But our officers get out. We work the lines. We go to rallies. We ask people to do things and we do the same things. If we ask people to work the phone banks, we work the phone banks . . . But we have got 800 and something local unions and if all you did as president of the UAW is you just went to every location, I’m not sure you can accomplish that in a four year term.

MC: Are you looking to retire soon?

RG: I will be looking to retire at the next convention. We will be holding our convention in Detroit . . . We see a lot of good things going on here and it’s just like anything else. We have our issues, our problems. But I think everybody is working hard to make this a better community, better city for all our visitors and that is what we want to do.

(To contact Bankole Thompson, E-mail bthompson@michronicle.com)