Autos: How to Bury a Job

Carefully assembled to exclude Ramblers, a cavalcade of cars rolled past the plant of American Motors Corp. in Kenosha, Wis., horns blaring to attract attention. From a truck at the head of the cavalcade, a group of men lifted a flower-topped coffin bedecked with signs that accused American Motors of attempting to "bury our union," bore it around the plant like pallbearers. The demonstration was organized and manned by members of United Auto Workers Local 72, who last week, to protest the firing of a union steward, struck American Motors at a crucial moment in its history and thus shut down all its auto plants and sent 18,000 workers home.

The Kenosha strike could not have come at a worse time for the ailing company, which had just begun production of its 1966 models. If the walkout lasts, it could cripple American Motors' 1966-model introduction in October and cause a further decline in auto sales, which so far this year are nearly 11% below 1964's level. When officials at U.A.W. headquarters in Detroit heard a report—later proved erroneous—that the demonstrators had displayed a sign reading "We're going to bury the company," they hastily issued a disclaimer: "The U.A.W. has absolutely no intention of burying American Motors. If they're burying American Motors, they're burying their own jobs."

The strike's origin goes back to a June election in Local 72, in which eleven out of 15 oldtimers on the union's board were replaced by new young militants dedicated to standing up against the company. They have strongly opposed American Motors' efforts to impose work standards similar to those in other auto plants, have been particularly unhappy about a recent rash of short work weeks. American's easygoing work standards, which help make labor costs per Rambler higher than for competitors' cars, are a hangover from the days of George Romney, who let labor have its way as long as it did not impede the production of fast-selling cars. Now that American Motors' sales and profits are down, however, the company can no longer afford to be inefficient, is demanding greater productivity from its workers.

There is more than a touch of irony in the present labor dispute. The shorter work weeks that have angered the union leaders were not intentionally scheduled by American Motors; they were caused by periodic shortages of auto bodies. The shortages developed when large numbers of bodies, rejected by inspectors for faulty workmanship, were sent back for repair instead of on to the assembly plant. The union steward whose firing precipitated the strike was discharged for refusing to let his men in the Kenosha body plant work overtime—work that would have provided more bodies, thus making unnecessary the short work weeks in the assembly plant.