WEB AND VIDEO CAMPAIGN, UAW TV ads redirect focus
WEB AND VIDEO CAMPAIGN
UAW TV ads redirect focus
Workers talk about community, safety
December 18, 2007
In an ad campaign launched Monday, the UAW is asking the public to shed the impression that the union is just for autoworkers.
Instead, the union is running TV spots and started a Web site aimed at telling the stories of its members, with testimonials from autoworkers, a retiree and a nurse, about their work in communities and their concerns about issues such as workplace safety and safe toys.
The campaign is an unusual one for the UAW. The union in the past has run advertisements about quality efforts and political issues, but not one so focused on its own members.
It also invites UAW members to tell their stories on the campaign’s Web site: www.iamtheuaw.org.
"It’s going to give our members the opportunity to tell us their stories," said Tony Pinelli, president of UAW Local 400 in Utica, who is leading the campaign. "We are more than just autoworkers. We have people doing some wonderful things in the community."
The campaign comes when UAW membership is declining: to about 576,000 members last year, down from its peak of 1.5 million in 1979.
"It’s a survival tactic for the UAW to broaden its appeal to new groups of workers and to make it seem as if it’s not the old UAW," said Gary Chaison, professor of management at Clark University in Worcester, Mass.
Chaison also argues that the ads might help the UAW’s reputation, after strikes against General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC were followed by contracts that included billions in concessions.
Andrew Gershoff, an associate marketing professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, said making a personal connection with those outside the UAW could help lay the groundwork for future organizing efforts.
The ads are filmed not from the plant floor, or any other workplace, but from backyards, in the kitchen and on the pond, where one UAW retiree appears to be fishing.
"You’re learning about the individuals, not just as workers, but as citizens," said Gershoff. "When we start to learn more about these individuals, then we might start to see ourselves in these individuals."
In one ad, Daphne Rice, who works at Ford’s Rawsonville plant making auto parts, talked about her community service work.
"I want people to look at that and see that my UAW gets out and really helps the community," Rice told the Free Press. "We do get our hands dirty inside the plant. But some of us get our hands dirty a little bit more outside the plant, too."
In addition to Detroit, the ads are airing in Indianapolis, Louisville, Ky., Jackson, Miss. and Nashville, Tenn.
Those southeastern cities are near plants built by Japanese automakers, in which the UAW has failed to organize workers.
"If anybody contacts us about organizing, that’s a bonus," Pinelli said. "But that’s not the intent of this. It’s a way for our members to tell their stories."
