The handshake is a long-standing tradition, either to start UAW and Detroit Three negotiations or to conclude them.
That’s why the leadership of the United Auto Workers union’s decision this week to very publicly ditch the ceremonial handshake with company officials to kick off bargaining was so notable.
Instead, the union offered what it called a “members’ handshake” on Wednesday, putting UAW President Shawn Fain and other leaders in front of members either starting or ending their shifts at three Detroit-area auto plants representing each automaker.
The change was clearly designed to send a message that these talks are different, a reflection of the more assertive tone the union has taken in recent months. The current contracts with Ford Motor Co., General Motors and Stellantis, which owns the Jeep, Ram, Chrysler, Dodge and Fiat brands, expire in September, with talks scheduled to start this week and next.
“I’m not shaking hands with any CEOs until they do right by our members, and we fix the broken status quo with the Big Three,” Fain said this week during a Facebook Live address. “The members have to come first.”
Harley Shaiken, professor emeritus and labor expert at the University of California, Berkeley, said he can’t recall a time when the two sides didn’t launch talks with a handshake.
“The handshake has been part of the formalities as long as I can remember, which would go back to the 1960s and I strongly suspect it’s been around in the entire post-war period. After a bitter 104-day strike at Chrysler in 1950 Reuther refused to pose for a handshake with Chrysler executives, which got public attention, buy I’ve never heard of refusing a handshake at the start of negotiations,” Shaiken said, referencing Walter Reuther, a legendary former union president who died in 1970.
Gavin Strassel, UAW archivist at Wayne State University’s Walter P. Reuther Library, found numerous examples of photos from negotiations dating to the 1930s showing UAW leaders, including Reuther, shaking hands with executives at Chrysler, Ford and GM.
Times when Reuther refused to shake hands with company leaders were notable, as evidenced by media coverage at the time, but they weren’t necessarily tied to the start of bargaining. The front page of the Jan. 26, 1946, Free Press, for instance, features Reuther rebuffing then-GM President Charles Wilson in a Senate corridor in Washington.
Wilson, according to the article, said he “just wanted to shake hands and be friendly.”
Reuther replied, “Nothing like that until we settle.”
More:UAW leaders ditch handshake with automaker CEOs to meet members at plants
More:Fain puts bullseye on ‘Big Three’ as UAW strike target
Gary Jones, one of two former UAW presidents convicted in the long-running corruption scandal in recent years, waxed poetic about the significance of the handshake in an opinion piece published in The Detroit News in July 2019 after the ceremonies that year where news photos showed him grasping the hands of Detroit Three executives.
“We’ve been negotiating contracts with these groups for over 65 years, and each negotiation starts with this same handshake,” Jones wrote in a piece under the heading, “Handshake symbolizes the struggle for worker rights.”
Jones explained that negotiations hadn’t always started so cordially, describing the 1936 Flint Sit-Down Strike against GM, which led to the first contract between the automaker and the union and was considered a major milestone in U.S. labor history.
Jones, as the UAW’s president in July 2019, represented the face of the union as it headed into negotiations with the automakers and later during the 40-day strike against GM that year. By the end of November, he’d resigned after his house was raided by federal agents.
The handshake isn’t the only physical display that’s remembered from past ceremonies, however. In fact, the hug that Jones’ predecessor, Dennis Williams, received from the late Sergio Marchionne, then the CEO of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, at the start of talks in 2015 is among the most memorable moments, coming to symbolize what many saw as union leadership grown too close to their corporate counterparts. Williams was also among those convicted later in the scandal.
These days, the union has new leadership, and the leadership is communicating a clear message that it is pursuing a new strategy toward bargaining that won’t look like the contract talks of recent years.
Shaiken said a lot of the significance about the current situation depends on the framing.
“If the union says ‘we’re saving the handshake for a successful conclusion,’ the significance of the lack of one is downplayed, but I suspect it’s meant as a highly visible gesture that the new leadership is prepared to fight and then the symbolism certainly translates into tough talk at the table. Ultimately what will be remembered is what the union achieves and whether it needs a strike — particularly a long strike — to get there,” Shaiken said.
Contact Eric D. Lawrence: elawrence@freepress.com. Become a subscriber.