By Doug Cunningham

[Jerry Tucker]: “There are plenty of ways that the UAW could - operating strategically and tactically smart - cause a lot of problems for the auto companies and frankly probably freeze the demand for reduction of further benefits and perhaps even the job loss.”

Jerry Tucker is a former member of the UAW International Executive Board and Co-founder of the Center For Labor Renewal. Tucker says with tens of thousands of jobs lost, the UAW is facing more concessionary pressure from U.S. auto makers after more than 20 years of UAW cooperation. It’s an assault on the bedrock middle class manufacturing wage and benefits standard and Tucker says the UAW needs a brand new approach to effectively struggle for workers.

[Tucker]: “The whole concept of how one builds a fight-back strategy has got to change. You cannot – old saying – make an omelet without breaking some eggs. At this point we need to really have a whole new strategic development, which not only includes a struggle at the point of domestic production, and perhaps even consumption, but something that links workers and unions around the globe together.”

Tucker believes the UAW should demand that U.S. automakers actively push for universal single payer national health care as they’ve done in Canada.

[Tucker 3]: “Not only a line should be drawn in the sand, but a trench should be dug.”