Harley Shaiken Quotations

What we're looking at in Seattle is a debate over the rules of the game and how the environment and labor will be treated -- whether they will be debated elsewhere or whether they will become part of the core discussions about trade.

What's new about the global economy is First World productivity combined with Third World wages. That can create some real downward pressure on high-wage countries.

Losing 30,000 jobs, closing 14 plants, has enormous consequences not just for the union, but for the future of their members. It is a major blow.

Many companies are looking to roll back benefits, and benefits for retirees are at the top of the list. This decision says that while they may be first on the list, they may not be easy to cut.

Miller has clearly chosen bankruptcy over collective bargaining to restructure the company. Delphi is using a bankruptcy judge to begin moving in the direction of Chinese wages and benefits.

Miller, by taking such a visible and hard line, may have underestimated the UAW. The union would like to see a settlement, but not at the cost of 60 years of gains.

Caterpillar is a powerful symbol of this process. It dominates its field. It is one of America's largest exporters, and it is very profitable. If there ever was a company that could bring back the social contract of the mid-20th century, it is Caterpillar. But it chooses not to.

Because they (Delphi) have considerable leverage at a moment of bankruptcy is not the same as saying the UAW is out of the game.

Fox and Chavez are both serving important domestic political purposes for each other.

GM is sending signals about its priorities. The 2007 negotiations are going to be tough.

Whatever the final language, it will be the benchmark of how other negotiations are judged. Since the auto workers won pensions in '48, a lot of things Detroit has done, for good or for bad, has set a pattern. This will be the case, even if the rhetoric of lifetime jobs guarantees outstrip the language.

There is more than one way out of this canyon they are in right now,

Historically, GM has been the most tone-deaf of the auto companies when it comes to labor issues. But York is speaking plainly and directly about critical issues between GM and the UAW.

The pain and surprise may come when Delphi wages are cut and it sets a pattern of pressing down on wages to succeed competitively, ... It reverses the success story of the American economy, which has always been that U.S. firms paid the most.

There are some very hard choices and no easy answers. This is a long way from over.

There are so many fewer moral barriers to a bankruptcy of this scale.

I suspect they felt that taking a very hard line would send a message to the union. Instead the message that they sent was to dig in your heels.

I suspect they don't want to strike, but they could be pushed into a corner, and if that's the case they have considerable leverage,

Labor is in some pretty tough rapids right now.

I think what we are looking at here are exit roads from the middle class.

I think this case is, in fact, a watershed. I think what it does is -- in the most dramatic way we've seen to date -- it introduces the wages of the global economy into Main Street in Michigan, Ohio and elsewhere,

Steve Miller has gone from a provocative after-dinner speaker to a negotiator. It's definitely a U-turn.

This really is a wake up call to Wal-Mart that these class action suits in front of a jury can be costly.

When you have a defined contribution, it puts more of the risk onto the recipient, ... If insurance costs go up, that means that your coverage is affected.

Both sides have an interest in settling this. Nobody wants a strike.

This was difficult for the union to do, but the union is being pragmatic. Its goal is to preserve jobs. It realizes the severity of the situation that GM is in.

What GM gets in changes in the jobs bank is likely going to be based on compromises they are willing to make elsewhere. The fact that they are talking about this so early is unusual and shows how important it is.

There's a cushion but it doesn't prevent the fall. It eases the pain but it's not the same as having the stability of a successful company.

There's no other way to diplomatically frame it - there's an empty chair there.

The union was caught in a global hurricane, and they managed to come out of it with minimal structural damage. They preserved key principles; they gave up some money.

These are very important findings that come at a critical moment in the immigration debate. What the study indicates is that if we view the contribution of immigrants to the total economy there may be important gains to all workers that have previously been ignored.

The rhetoric is much different this time - this time they're really out to get each other.

Delphi has essentially said: 'We need competitive wages.' Those wages currently are being set in China, not Flint, (Michigan).

Bankruptcy is allowing airlines to emerge with a clean slate, but it's bad news for workers. Pensions will be affected, and it will mean lower wages and probably fewer jobs.

This is the first pitch in the game of hard ball and I think the union is both angered and not by any means intimidated.

This could be the biggest buyout in memory and a turning point in the history of the industry.

This contract could be a watershed event within the telecommunications industry because a major union has used its existing leverage to break into a new area. This isn't simply any company. It's the largest telecommunications employer. On one level it's potentially a watershed event because the union could gain a toehold in the most promising area of telecommunications.

They have a very determined strategy and they are plunking a lot of resources into this. Northwest is not going to blink at this point.

They are reaching out and offering the workers a service, but they are also laying out the possibility of workers beginning to work together. So as an individual, you don't have to confront the largest employer in the world. You can do it as a group.

They're going to try to make an argument that simply cutting wages, slashing benefits, etc., is not the only way to go. Whether the bankruptcy judge buys that remains an open question.

They're getting their message across before bargaining begins in earnest. Showing a lot of visibility and political clout means bargaining will be influenced by not just what happens at the table but what happens in the community.

For Chavez, Fox is a surrogate of the United States in Latin America. For Fox, coming on against Chavez is low-cost, since he's in his last year (in office), weakened at home ... . Standing firm on anything offers him possible gains.

For a plant closing of this magnitude, the overall impact is somewhere between traumatic and devastating.

It's another sign of the tension that is enflaming this strike. GM is just pushing the UAW here, tweaking them.

It's another sign of the tension that is enflaming this strike, ... GM is just pushing the UAW here, tweaking them.

It's going to have significant impact on the companies and on the industry. It is a painful option for the union but it is the best option of those available.

It's unclear if it's a route to a better job or to a more educated unemployment.

The next step will be the permanent replacement of mechanics and cleaners. That is what Northwest will announce sooner rather than later.

The notion of a buyout as large as 20,000 workers would go a long way toward settling the Delphi situation.

Economic growth in the United States in the 20th century was based on building entrances to the middle class, from Henry Ford in 1913 to strong unions in the '50s and '60s.

Everyone on the picket line who thought they could be out of a job for good will be out of a job for good.

It's certainly representative of the discontent that's out there. The retirees are frustrated, but I don't think it represents a major threat yet.

They've got tough issues, but nobody wants to put the moneymaking on hold to sort it out.

The corporation knows the sensitivity of these kinds of issues, they have a lot of experience with what will provoke a local strike. What I suspect they (the GM management) didn't anticipate is that it would reach this intensity.

The CAW, given the context, has done very well. The boat is afloat and upright after going through the rapids. They wanted to protect their members.

If you cut wages by two-thirds, that creates a class of people that can't afford to go to Wal-Marts. If other industries do this, America will have a far smaller middle class, and the whole economy in the 21st Century begins to unravel.

He's taken a windy day and turned it into a hurricane. Labor is influential in Sacramento. On certain bills and issues, they are very influential. But they are one of many groups that can dominate.

If GM actually did pursue this route?there would be a really poisoned atmosphere in the United Auto Workers plants where the parts are shipped.

Health benefits have been at the top of the list for what unions have sought to hang on to. This reflects how serious union leaders feel this is.

You could have the paradox of lifetime job guarantees and far fewer workers.

The union has very painful choices, but it's managed to preserve important principles in a very turbulent environment. At the end of the day, UAW retirees will still have paid health benefits. Less than before but far more than most Americans have.

The hotels are confronting a union that has significantly more leverage and more imagination than in the past. The union is slowly but surely introducing national bargaining in an industry in which the companies used to tower over the local unions.

A lot will depend on who's the first company up. You may almost have an insipid auction taking place among the companies trying to be first.

You've got the pressures of the global economy, fierce competition in deregulated industries like airlines and powerful anti-union employers like Wal-Mart.

The global economy has become a blast furnace that seeks to eliminate many of the gains that steelworkers have won over the years.

The court cases reflect that the rat has made its claw marks felt.

The close vote tells us there's a lot of anger and apprehension out there.

The members are angry and fearful. Imagine you work a lifetime, and then you see it go up in smoke.