Buzz Hargrove
Buzz Hargrove
Basil Eldon "Buzz" Hargrove, OCis the former National President of the Canadian Auto Workers trade union. He is currently serving as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Ryerson University's Ted Rogers School of Management...
amount bargaining challenges difficult downtime faced ford given good knew media workers workplace
We faced one of the most difficult challenges in bargaining that we have in a good many years, ... the Ford workers probably knew that more than anyone, given the amount of downtime they've had, given the uncertainty, the media speculation of workplace closures and layoffs.
decent demanding everywhere fed job respect security starting wages workers
Workers everywhere are just starting to say, 'Look, we're fed up with this. We're going to start demanding that we have respect and we have job security and we have decent wages and benefits,'
ability america built canada close emerging export growth imports lack leisure major markets north problem ship united
Our major problem is imports and lack of ability to export into the emerging growth markets of Asia. They ship into North America at their leisure and they close their markets to anything built in Canada and the United States.
major
It's a major restructuring. I don't want to downplay it,
families strike today
It's going to strike a lot of Windsor families today when they get this news.
canada values view
I think that was a short-term view of the values of Canada.
chrysler decided lead workers
I have decided in 1996 that the Chrysler workers will lead the bargaining,
ditch far
But we're also far enough apart, ... that we could end up in the ditch tonight.
membership tough
It was a tough set of bargaining, ... To get that kind of endorsement from the membership is just exhilarating.
powers
If you devolve all the powers to the provinces, what do you have left?
commitment economy job jobs low meeting quality sell wage
Just because we're a low wage economy and you can get someone to do our job cheaper, you don't have the right to sell our jobs as long as we're meeting the commitment of quality and productivity.
cause issue street tomorrow
I don't see an issue out there that would cause us to be out on the street tomorrow at midnight.
agreement context current economic given issues
Given the current economic context that we're in, this is not the richest-ever agreement that we have bargained, but it's a responsible bargaining, recognizing all of the issues that we face,
challenges declining difficult faced ford general happen happened market share
This has been a very difficult and challenging set of negotiations with General Motors. The challenges we faced here didn't happen by chance. They happened because of the declining market share of General Motors, Ford and DaimlerChrysler.