- Playing
- It's Do Or Die For The United Auto Workers
- From
- Dick Meister
Pressures from foreign automakers threaten to weaken the United Auto Workers union's position as one of the country's most economically and politically powerful progressive and influential organizations.
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Related Pieces
Piece Description
Pressures from foreign automakers threaten to weaken the United Auto Workers union's position as one of the country's most economically and politically powerful progressive and influential organizations.
Broadcast History
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Transcript
Historians invariably cite the sit-down strikes at the country's major auto plants in the 1930s as a major factor in the spread of unionization throughout the automobile industry and throughout American industry generally.
The strikes helped establish the United Auto Workers Union – the UAW – as one of the country's most economically and politically powerful, progressive and influential organizations, and its president, Walter Reuther, as one of the country's major leaders.
But that was then, when the American automobile industry was virtually unchallenged by foreign automakers. Now U.S. automakers face heavy competition from Asian and German firms, especially from the firms that have opened plants in the United States. The steady growth of the non-union plants has been accompanied by a steady weakening of the UAW. The union's membership, once in the millions, has declined to 350,000....
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Intro and Outro
INTRO:Commentator Dick Meister says the United Auto Workers is in big trouble.
OUTRO:Dick Meister is a long-time labor and political journalist.
