King concedes past strategies failed, vows a new approaches going forward.

New United Auto Workers President Bob King promised Monday to set aside long-held union positions that have failed or "hindered" workers, in a bid to remain relevant in the new economy.



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In a potential watershed speech here to auto industry insiders, King outlined his vision for the union's future. He also vowed to mount a tough, new effort to organize nonunion automakers. "The 20th-century UAW tried to find ways to achieve job security, such as job banks, that in the end did not achieve the results we were seeking," King said during a speech at the annual Management Briefing Seminars, sponsored by the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor. Job banks allowed UAW workers to receive nearly full wages even when they were laid off. "The 21st-century UAW knows the only true path to job security is by producing the best quality product, the safest product and the longest lasting product at the best price." King, 63, who became president in June, acknowledged the union's mistakes. The UAW shouldn't have fought clean air efforts, he said. It should have been more open to global trade. And some contract agreements didn't work, fostering bad relationships between the union and automakers, which were treated as adversaries. "We signed on to ever more lengthy and complicated contracts with work rules and narrow job classifications that hindered flexibility, hindered the full use of the talents of our members and promoted a litigious and time-consuming grievance culture," said King. Harley Shaiken, a labor professor at the University of California, Berkeley, called King's comments "striking in tone and a bold departure from the past."

Source: UAW charts new course

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