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Criticism, by it's very nature, is very often viewed as simply personal attack. It is often maintained that those who resort to the art of criticism are only doing so in order to profit from the misfortune of others. This, however, could not be further from the truth. In the realm of politics, and especially in the realm of democratic politics, it is absolutely essential to the fife of the institution for debate and discussion to take place freely. If this' does not occur, those in leadership are left to act as they choose without taking into consideration the interests of those they were elected to serve. It is not our intention to simply attack those in office, nor is our intention to profit from the mistakes of our present leaders. On the contrary, it is our intention to look at all that has taken place in the last few months, and offer an alternative interpretive analysis. We are convinced that this win not only serve the immediate interests of the membership of Local 1216, but will also act as an incentive to those in leadership to conduct their affairs in a manner more in keeping with the democratic principles of our union. We do not believe that an analysis that restricted itself to the recent contract negotiations would serve any meaningful purpose. We are convinced that such an attempt would only lead to more confusion. We have, therefore decided to examine, not only the contract, but rather the entire time period preceding the contract talks and their aftermath. We are convinced that such an approach will yield a more coherent analysis of past events, and will also provide a base for predicting what we may expect in the future if things continue to go unchecked.

While what has taken place in the Aeroroom recently may have taken many by surprise, it has done so only because not much attention was directed toward what was going on in the rest of the plant prior to contract talks. Many will remember that during the campaign, much discussion was directed toward lean production, and F.P.S. It was maintained then that the sole purpose of lean production was to eliminate jobs, and restructure the workplace in such a manner that would facilitate such job reduction. This is exactly what has taken place, not only in the Aerodrome, but also in the Clearness, and in the Leybold areas as well. Our present leadership has not only turned a deaf ear to complaints arising from the membership regarding such job reductions, but has also negotiated a contract that gives the company an even freer hand to eliminate more jobs in the future. Evidence for this claim may be ascertained by reading no further into the local agreement than the first few pages where our leadership wholeheartedly concurred with management that Lean was the way to go in order to preserve jobs. This smacks in the face of each and every member who has recently been reduced out of their areas due to the implementation of the Lean Production System. Where is the job security we are being promised? What we are really seeing take place is not job preservation, but rather more work being done with fewer workers. Product launches are even being jeopardized in order that our plant may become more lean. Insult is then added to injury when both management and our union leadership attempt to lay responsibility for being behind schedule in areas where new products are being launched on workers who are having to do more with less. Our Skilled Trades committeeman even went so far as to say that production workers were nothing but a bunch of cry babies, and if they did not like it here, they should just go to McDonalds and work for five dollars an hour. What kind of union representation is that anyway? Our response to Wally Greene is: Stick to the area you were elected to represent and leave production questions to those who were elected to represent production. Lean Production may be the wave of the future, but what we need is union leadership that will stand behind workers who are suffering under it's weight, not leaders who will stand beside management and beat workers into submission. We need our leaders to be committed to finding a way to tailor Lean Production to a union perspective the same way our great union found a way to tailor traditional forms of manufacturing to the union perspective. Thus far, we see no sign on the horizon of any such pioneer emerging from our present leadership.

In addition to the job reductions, the accompanying job overload, outsourcing, and union management harassment of the workers, we are also seeing an alarming trend emerging related to job bids. It seems that the union leadership sees nothing wrong with allowing the company to fill jobs off of bid sheets that have already expired, and also to repost job bids even before bid sheets have expired. Obviously, the union cannot decide whether or not they believe in the equal application clause of our contract which states that the terms of our agreement will be applied equally to each and every member without discrimination. The job bid system was designed in order to prevent favoritism and other such practices characteristic of non-union shops. However, our union seems to believe that as long as the company fills jobs with people that are not cry babies and would rather work here than at McDonalds, why respect a fair job bid system--after all-- it is competitiveness that counts, not a fair and democratic work environment. This is a dangerous position to take for the future of our union, and should be discontinued as quickly as possible. We certainly would not want it to be known that a non-union shop like McDonalds treats their workers fairer than we are treated here at Visteon.

Throughout the negotiations, every union official we talked to simply said negotiations were difficult, and that we might have to strike. After reading the contract, it seems that the only thing that our leadership had trouble negotiating was the 18th hole, as well as the easiest way to get the Aeroroom agreement out without letting the whole membership find out about it before the vote. The argument our bargaining committee came up with to justify everything that took place with the Aeroroom was that the prior agreement mandated that either party could terminate the agreement with a 30 day letter of notification. Such an argument holds water only if we understand collective bargaining to mean that the company gets to set the terms of the agreement and we simply give in to their every demand. We understand negotiations to mean that everything is up for grabs, and that everything that existed in the prior agreement is open to debate and

re-negotiation. This would even include any statement related to the Aeroroom which gave either party the right to terminate the agreement with a 30 day letter. Our leadership was under no obligation to honor any 30 day letter agreed upon in a prior agreement,unless they chose to do so through the course of negotiations. It is obvious to us that they only used the argument in order to make it look like they had no other choice. This reflects a basic inability by our leadership to accept responsibility for their actions, and would explain why the Aeroroom. agreement was only passed out to the Aeroroom on afternoon shift the day before the ratification vote. This is at best reprehensible, and at worst down right sickening. The ratification vote on the local agreement should have been postponed until everyone had a chance to read the agreement and decide whether they liked it or not. This was not to be the case. But despite our leaderships guerilla style tactics, the contract was still barely ratified.

While all of this has left a number of the union's membership on edge, we must not loose sight of the fact that our struggles are, and always will be against management. Given the fact that no strong contract Language was negotiated to restrict management's right to eliminate jobs in our plant, now, more than ever, we must learn to stick together. We must force our leadership to do the job we elected them to perforrn, and we must understand that shopfloor solidarity will now be our only true means ofjob security. These two things go hand in hand.

As we stated earlier in our letter, our intentions have not been to simply to belittle our elected officials, but rather to begin the process of holding them accountable for their actions. We are convinced that an informed membership is a strong membership, and that a leadership that is held accountable, will be a leadership that performs their duties according to the highest ethical standards of the UAW Ethical Practices Code.

According to United States Code Service, Labor, Title 29, under 29 USCS 411, n27, Federal Court Cite, Appropriate test for. determining if Union denied meaningful and informed vote is (1) whether members were given proper and adequate notice, (2) whether information releases by Union adequately informed members of issues, (3) whether there was time for adequate reflection by members, and (4) whether there was adequate time to mount effective support or opposition to leadership's position. Gilliam v Independent Steelworkers Union ( 1983, ND W Va) 572 F Supp 168,116 BNA LRRM 2547

In the case of the Aeroroom agreement and its dissolution, we would have to say that we fail on all points of the litmus test. Our remedies are clearly covered under Articles 32 and 33 of the International Constitution, and for all those concerned, it is imperative to attend the next Union meeting,- to put this issue on the floor. If proper redress is not made at the local level, this can be appealed to the Public Review Board which shall then have final and binding authority over all cases related to alleged violations of any of the UAW Ethical Practices Codes.