What's at stake.(Special Report)(labor relations with United Auto Workers)(Brief Article)

Crain's Detroit Business, September, 2002

The United Auto Workers want to: * Increase union membership. * Create a partnership earlier in the design phase with the auto supplier, the union and the automaker. * Add value for workers through better respect and dignity and for the suppliers through higher production and less waste.

* Work with suppliers and automakers to increase quality and compete with foreign-owned automakers, which are nearly all nonunion. Suppliers say: * Organized shops will demand higher wages and require inflexible work rules, obstacles that companies cannot afford when automakers are cutting prices. * Union success would be through more enlightened leadership that recognizes that suppliers need to be lean and make work rules that are flexible.