UAW Downsizes Its Own Company

0 Comments | Insight on the News, August 9, 1999 | by Michael F. Munday

Choate resigned as chairman of the UBN board and agreed not to appear on the network for the duration of the campaign. His apparent concern was to maintain the union markets for product sales, so he had no interest in being bought out of the deal as Harder had been. In fact, prior to agreeing to become Perot's No. 2, Choate had secured a commitment from the Texas billionaire that, if the UAW should withdraw from UBN, as it had a right to do, Perot would buy out their position. This would assure that the network would be a viable business operation; and if the UAW did agree to sell its stake and thereby alienate union workers from UBN, the network could become a vehicle to deliver U.S.-made products to supporters and friends of the Reform Party.

When Choate made the offer known to Yokich, Perot's staff was put on alert to go to Detroit on a moment's notice. But Yokich declined, indicating that the UAW was more interested in raising issues than in making money.

"After Pat Choate left, there was a real shift in everything that was going on" at the network, says David Hand, a former UBN producer and cohost of its No. 2 show. The UAW effectively had seized control of UBN. "To make a long story short, everything went to hell within a few weeks," Hand adds. At this point he talked to his fellow workers about forming a collective-bargaining unit. "I thought a union shop made good sense," says Hand. Shortly after presenting his concerns to the UAW-directed management in November, Hand was fired.

"When I filed my claim for unemployment insurance, the UBN managers claimed I was fired for work `not up to standards' even though my work evaluations as late as October were all excellent," says Hand. "I responded by saying that they'd fired me for trying to organize my coworkers for purposes of collective bargaining, for wanting a union shop. And the DLES [Florida Department of Labor and Employment Security, Division of Unemployment Compensation] agreed with me."

Following Hand's dismissal for labor organizing in January 1997, a series of "alphabet firings" was begun by the UAW-selected management. "It was like someone was taking an alphabetical list of us and going through it, firing us all," says Brewer. Of the 70-plus people who were employed at UBN prior to Harder and Choate's removal by the UAW, 43 were fired. Several did not receive final checks, including two African-American employees who were let go after many years of "more than satisfactory service" and a handicapped homeworker who was denied due severance and accrued vacation time.

At the UBN distributor-sales operation, called Project USA, catalog deliveries for Christmas orders were delayed by UAW production demands until after Thanksgiving 1996. But distributors, who had paid a nominal fee of $25 each for the privilege of presenting UBN's "made in USA" products for sale, still numbered in the thousands. Their orders continued, certainly in part as a result of a contest that had begun July 4, 1996, to end July 4, 1997. The distributor contest was widely promoted on videotapes and other materials sent to each distributor. Prizes to the top winner of the competition included a Cadillac. "They also had a choice of a cash equivalent, as far as I can recall," says current UBN day-to-day manager J. Clifford Curley. "The contest was concluded and, to my under standing, none of the distributors in contention made a claim for prizes. They were notified."