November
2006
Hey, Mark Green! Harley workers to vote on company’s new expansion proposal today
Apparently, Harley-Davidson workers are voting again today on the company's plans to expand in the Milwaukee area and create 120 new jobs. I was confused. When Mark Green ran for governor, he told me that Gov. Jim Doyle had chased those jobs out of state.
Sometimes TV news gets things wrong, so I waited until morning and checked the business section of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to see if it was true. It turns out that print media also thinks there is a vote on the Harley expansion today. Mark Green, how can this be?
The union has to vote on Harley's plans because Harley, which is turning record profits and prides itself on being a great place to work, wants to save money on the backs of its future workers. Harley doesn’t want the new jobs to be subject to its collectively bargained wage scale, which requires an okay from the union. The union, Local 2-209 represents about 1,600 workers, who overwhelmingly rejected Harley's initial plan, which had some workers set to make $10 an hour. I was surprised to read about the workers’ voting down the expansion. Mark Green told me that Jim Doyle was responsible for the initial Harley deal going bad.
No good union will support a two-tier structure of wages or benefits, which entails selling out future workers while maintaining at least status quo for workers of today. This sort of thing comes up often at bargaining, and unions have to be prepared to walk away from benefits offered current workers, hold the line and negotiate for the future. But this isn't a collectively bargaining situation yet, and Harley's got Local 2-209 over a barrel. This is Harley’s final offer. Reject the deal and Harley moves its new jobs out of state, where they can pay workers much less and the union can't collectively bargain the new positions. Either way, the union's bargaining position in the future will be weakened, but if workers accept the deal today, the new employees will make $20 an hour after one year, according to Journal Sentinel.
It's not a perfect world nor is it the perfect offer, but it's a show of commitment from Harley. We need those jobs in Milwaukee – jobs that Mark Green told me were already gone.
It occurs to me that it’s good for the state and good for Milwaukee that Mark Green lost to Jim Doyle last Tuesday. Either Mark Green didn't have a grasp on what was going on at Harley — and it's important for a governor to understand what's happening in the job economy — or he was just lying to me.
John-david Morgan
John-David Morgan, Watchdogging Business, Watchdogging Campaigns
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So when Harley slashes wages and forces more people onto the public health care dollar while making more than several hundred millions in profit it is a commitment to the community, but when Walmart does so its criminal? The election is over but you are still trying to twist things around to get Green? Blinded.
The only winners here are the stockholders–individuals, pension funds, mutual funds, etc…The big losers are Harley workers at other plants who will re-negociate their contracts after the Milwaukee concessions. But I shouldn’t have to point this out to a liberal.
Twisting things? After Harley workers rejected the first company proposal, the company said they’d come back with another offer, which they announced the day before the election. Knowing that the Harley jobs had not left and probably would not leave at all, Green in his ads blamed Doyle for Harley and Menard’s moving jobs out of state. Desperate lies from a rubber stamp congressman whose campaign had hit the wall at 47% percent. Mark Green was the weakest of the four Republican Congressman in Wisconsin who might have run at Doyle? Green was a terrible candidate, and that was apparent for months, unless you drank the kool-aid.
Harley’s initial proposal had some of the new positions starting in the $10-$12 an hour range. The show of commitment was Harley moving off that to an $18.75 minimum starting wage for the new positions. A year after hire, the company says, those new workers will be making $20 an hour. Of course the company could have done better, but it was not an insulting offer, and showed at least some good faith. It was good enough, as workers overwhelmingly approved the deal on Tuesday.
Does it hurt the union in future bargaining? You bet. The membership of Local 2-209 made a big sacrifice to keep those jobs in Milwaukee, where we can’t afford to lose $20 an hour jobs. Shame on Harley for padding their pockets at the expense of their workers, who should be recognized for caring more about Milwaukee than their employer.
Conservatives like to accuse unions of being unyielding and handcuffing companies in their markets. Local 2-209 members found themselves over a barrel and made the best of a bad situation for the benefit of hundreds of families, people who don’t work at Harley yet, people who they have never met. And yes, for the benefit of their employer’s bottom line. That’s union commitment to a community and to an employer, one that wouldn’t have been possible without years of trust built into the union-employer relationship.
Comparing Harley to Wal-mart is the kind of comment that’ll get you into a bar fight. The state suing Wal-mart to force the company to reimburse for BadgerCare is a just a swell idea. Do you think JB Van Hollen will give it a go?