76-03-A1

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The Ford Strike

Transcript The United Auto Workers strike against the Ford Motor Company drove economic indicators down in the crucial closing days of the Presidential campaign. Was the timing of the strike the result of coincidence or calculation? I'll be right back. All across the United States people have told me that the things they fear most are Big Government, Big Business and Big Labor. Bigness robs the average citizen of his rightful voice. The Big Government official ignores the average voter; the Big Business executive ignores the average stockholder; the Big Labor leader ignores the average union member. Often, these three powers play their own political games, for high and important stakes, as if the rest of us did not exist. The recent United Auto Workers strike against the Ford Motor Company is a case in point. At the Democrats' national convention last July, Leonard Woodcock, president of the UAW, was much in evidence as a supporter of Jimmy Carter. And, Jimmy Carter was saying how bad the economy was, even though the economic indicators showed otherwise. Then, in August, the Republicans nominated President Ford and he countered Carter by insisting that the economy was getting stronger. In September, Woodcock's UAW struck the Ford Motor Company, and 170,000 auto workers walked away from their jobs. In addition, the jobs of millions of other workers all over the country were threatened as Ford curtailed orders for material and parts. There had been no immediate strike voted and, judging from the news media coverage of the start of the strike, it was hard to find any workers who supported it. They had, after all, just begun to make back what they had lost in the previous year's recession, and they wanted to keep working. Leonard Woodcock, it seemed, had ignored the wishes of his union members and engineered a massive strike. Why? I don't know the answer for sure. Perhaps only Mr. Woodcock knows. But I can certainly document political coincidences. Jimmy Carter said the economy was weak. Gerald Ford said the economy was strong. Mr. Woodcock supported Mr. Carter. In September the auto strike began--the strike the workers apparently didn't want. By mid-October the Federal Reserve Board had to report that the nation's industrial output had failed to grow in September for the first time in 18 months, as a direct result of the strike. Coincidence or calculation? You be the judge. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening.		Details Batch Number 76-03-A1 Production Date 10/18/1976 Book/Page Online PDF Audio No Youtube? No
		Added Notes Leonard Woodcock New York Times article on a tentative agreement ending the strike