Great leaders know when it's time to leave. But few have ever timed their exit as perfectly as Buzz Hargrove, who gave up the presidency of the Canadian Auto Workers on Sept. 6. Lehman Brothers collapsed eight days later, an historic event that sent the global economy into a deep funk, auto sales off a cliff and General Motors and Chrysler hurtling toward bankruptcy.
The world fretted. Mr. Hargrove set to work on his book deal.
Yes, it's all Ken Lewenza's mess to deal with now, and what a bind he is in.
"The problem is not our workforce. The problem is not our product," the new CAW chief protested Tuesday night at a press conference at Toronto's Sheraton Centre hotel. "The problem is the global financial crisis." But the flip side of being the blameless victim of global forces is that, by definition, you're powerless, too.
The biggest decisions are being made in Washington and Detroit. A few are being made in Ottawa. At Queen's Park sits the Canadian autoworkers' biggest ally in government, but it's a small player in the larger drama.
Some of the old Buzz bluster remains ("What more can they do in Canada when they've been in constant restructuring in the last 10 years?" Mr. Lewenza asked). But it's fainter now, undermined by the cold reality that that union has no leverage and that, when it comes right down to it, only the U.S. Congress can grant the kind of money - $19-billion (U.S.) - that GM and Chrysler say they need just to keep going. And there probably isn't a single Congressman who could locate Oshawa on a map.
What will the CAW have to give up to keep Canadian auto assembly plants running? Mr. Lewenza couldn't say. It's too early. He'd spoken to his U.S. counterpart, United Auto Workers president Ron Gettelfinger, less than an hour earlier about the UAW's "tentative understandings" with the three Detroit-based auto makers, but the details were still unclear.
So, too, is the negotiating power of the Harper government, which agreed to put up $2.7-billion of a $4-billion emergency loan for the Bailout Two, only to hear GM Canada say it didn't need the money yet.
In the long run, is there any need for GM to make vehicles here? Mr. Lewenza wishes the answer to be yes but even he had to admit that the Oshawa operation would be a rump, employing perhaps 8,000 unionized workers by the time the CAW's contract expires in 2011, down nearly 25 per cent from today's already-shrunken levels.
That's if things go reasonably well. If U.S. auto sales remain depressed, far below the previous norms of 16 million to 17 million vehicles a year, no one knows where the bottom is.
You might well ask why so much public money has been pledged to protect such a relatively small number of jobs.
The obvious answer is that it supports many more jobs, through suppliers and spinoff effects.
The less obvious is answer is that GM Canada isn't an auto maker as much as a pension fund that happens to own some plants and equipment.
Mr. Lewenza estimated that, three years out, 28,000 to 30,000 people will be drawing from its pension funds. But those funds are underfunded by several billion dollars, creating a major headache for governments, particularly Ontario's, if GM were to close up in Canada. (Chrysler's Canadian pension funds are in better shape.)
Sym Gill, the CAW's pensions and benefits director, said the solution to the pension woes rested with "the government, the companies and ourselves... We're ready to listen to any proposals." Some form of taxpayer infusion or guarantee for the GM pension scheme would be welcome, Mr. Gill suggested. That might be wishful thinking, though.
Meanwhile, a source in the book publishing business says it's anticipated Mr. Hargrove's forthcoming book will be a big seller, given the timeliness of it. At least somebody's going to make a few bucks from all this.