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February 28, 2008
Truitt Financial Disclosure and American Axle
I always love when something I've recently taught in class dovetails nicely into a current event being discussed in the popular press. Case in point: yesterday in Labor Law class, we discussed the duty to bargain in good faith under Section 8(d) of the NLRA and the per se violation of Section 8(a)(5) that occurs when a company says it has a present inability to pay a union's bargaining demand and then refuses to substantiate those claims by giving information to the union. Under Truitt and Detroit Edison, such information is due to the union so it can carry out its role as bargaining representative of employees.
So yesterday after class, my trusty research assistant Brent Klein wrote: "the UAW went on strike at American Axle in an attempt to gain access to company financial documents. The union claims these documents are needed to justify the across the board wage and benefit cuts that American Axle is requiring to move labor contract negotiations forward. The fact that distinguishes this situation from that of the Big Three (which recently negotiated their own contracts and accepted similar cuts) is American Axle turned a $37 million profit last year, a far cry from the 38.7 billion loss suffered by General Motors last year."
Ah, the continuing relevancy of labor law.
Here's the article from The Detroit News.
PS
February 28, 2008 in Labor Law | Permalink
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Comments
Don't we need some more information, Paul? AAM would have to turn over the documents only if it pleaded poverty. If it offers some ambiguous justification like "we need the cuts in order to position ourselves for future growth" or "to meet anticipated competition," it doesn't have to provide its current financial information. The news reports about this strike haven't explained whether AAM is violating 8a5 or whether the union just wants the information for PR purposes.
It probably doesn't matter, however, because the strike will be long over before the legal issue would be resolved. If the UAW is following its recent pattern, the strike might be brief, designed more to let the troops blow off steam than to shut down the axle supply.
Posted by: Dennis | Feb 28, 2008 1:28:11 PM
You're completely right, Dennis. I did not mean to imply that AAM had committed an 8(a)(5) Truitt violation, only that this was the issue that was discussed in class and then this was what the union's allegations were about in the AAM case.
Posted by: Paul | Feb 28, 2008 2:34:18 PM
