Calling it a victory won't make it so

The protégé has learned his lesson well. Ken Lewenza, head of the Canadian Auto Workers union, ended months of indignation, confusion, frustration, exasperation and negotiation by doing exactly what the master, human microphone Buzz Hargrove, would have done: He declared victory.

"We fought back against the most outrageous demands, from both the company and the government," Mr. Lewenza said after announcing yet another agreement between his union and General Motors of Canada, the third in a year. "We resisted them. We fought back. We rallied our retirees at Queen's Park.… We showed the company and the government alike we were still determined to fight back - that we would never surrender to our key principles [sic]… We drew a line in the sand," etcetera.

So much fighting and resisting and not surrendering: They ought to have piped in the Rocky theme song for the CAW press conference. But it makes for a nice storyline, doesn't it? Hard-working folks stand up to The Man, take on the heartless neo-cons, get their deal, save the day.

Except in the movies, when the underdog wins, everyone cheers. Where's the applause? For that matter, where's the victory? Yes, GM Canada carries on. It won't go into liquidation, but most likely an orderly bankruptcy. Its pension plan, in the red to the tune of $6.5-billion to $7-billion, won't collapse (at least, not soon). Tens of thousands of retirees will be spared a reduction in their pensions. The car assembly plant in Oshawa, Ont., lives on to churn out Chevy Impalas.

That's all good, but it's not enough to mask one of the biggest revelations of the automotive soap opera: The CAW, the largest private-sector union in the country, has been exposed as politically weak and far less powerful than it seemed.

Think about what just happened here. In March, the CAW and GM Canada reached a deal to cut labour costs by about $7 an hour. The company was happy with it. The workers approved it. Everyone was pleased except the Harper government in Ottawa and the McGuinty government in Ontario, who tore up the deal and sent them back to negotiate. Tony Clement, the federal Industry Minister, went so far as to tell GM and Chrysler how much they should cut costs to the dollar. (No word yet on whether he's been down at the dealerships telling the salesmen how to move Buicks.) By May 16, the company and union had agreed on almost everything. The politicians stepped in again. Not enough, they said. Cut deeper. Do something about that pension plan.

"We were bargaining with government just as much as we were with the company," Mr. Lewenza said. "That was very strange." But it was possible only because the CAW proved to have so few friends in high places willing to back it.

And that was true only because the union had so little public sympathy. Polls showed a large percentage of voters opposed to the auto bailout and resentful of the billions being spent on it. The Liberals stayed largely on the sidelines. The NDP's Jack Layton was hiding under his sweater. The Bloc was busy complaining that the forest sector wasn't getting the same special treatment and stirring the pot.

Even at Queen's Park, the auto-friendly Dalton McGuinty decided not to spend much political capital in defence of auto workers earning $100,000 a year or more. Of course, the $100,000 figure is not really true; most auto workers earn no such amount. (The most senior ones earn base wages of between $34 and $40 an hour - which, assuming a typical work week and 48 weeks a year, translates into roughly $60,000 to $70,000 a year, plus overtime and some generous benefits.) But the CAW could never counteract the public image of the overpaid auto worker - and then made it worse by harping on its idea of a new national program that would guarantee pensions. The idea is interesting but the CAW's advancement of it is self-serving, for who would really benefit from such a scheme?

Not the 80 per cent of people in the private sector who have no defined-benefit plan at all. All they have are their RRSPs and other private savings plans that have been devastated by the market meltdown. They also don't enjoy the "30 and out" rules that allow some workers to take a comfortable retirement in their fifties if they've accumulated three decades of service.

The CAW was able to hang on to some of its cherished benefits. But look at the precedents that have now been set. Some auto workers will actually have to pay into their pension plan. GM was able to chip away at benefits. And, most important, government showed it can - and will - push the auto workers around. With the feds and Ontario entangled in the auto industry for years to come, it likely won't be the last time.