United Auto Workers discussing possibility of selling part of Black Lake in northern Michigan -- The Solidarity Message Board

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Date Posted: 09:15:51 01/03/04 Sat
Author: Moderator
Subject: United Auto Workers discussing possibility of selling part of Black Lake in northern Michigan

December 12, 2003
The United Auto Workers is discussing the possibility of selling off part of its Black Lake property in northern Michigan.

UAW President Ron Gettelfinger recently told the union's top executive board that the union needed to tighten its belt and apparently suggested several steps the union could take to improve its finances, sources familiar with UAW problems said Thursday.
In a letter to union members in the November issue of the UAW's Solidarity Magazine, Gettelfinger noted the economy has been working against the union in recent years. "The economy has changed dramatically in the three years since the last presidential election. Since Bush took office, America's factory jobs are at their lowest level in 41 years," Gettelfinger said.
Elizabeth Bunn, the UAW's financial-secretary, noted in the November Solidarity that the loss of manufacturing jobs has had a severe impact has also been felt by the UAW. "As companies move jobs overseas or to low-wage, nonunion locations in the U.S., our union loses members, which results in a corresponding decline in dues revenues," Bunn noted.
The UAW's membership dropped from 715,000 in 2001 to 675,000, according to the union's 2002 Financial Report, which also was published in November's Solidarity. The union has not yet published its 2003 Financial Report, but membership continued to decline this year, union officials have acknowledged.
"While UAW revenues have decreased, there has not been a proportionate decrease in the expenses associated with providing top quality services to our active and retired members. UAW members, officers and staff must continue to make every effort to make the best possible use of our dues dollars," Bunn noted in her report.
One step included selling all or part of its storied, 1,000-acre Black Lake Family Education Center just outside the village of Onaway.
Most of the union's funds remain liquid, according to the financial report, and the union has banked more than $1.1 billion, including more than $807 million in the union's strike fund.
The one fund that has suffered the sharpest decline in recent years is the Organization, Education and Communications Fund, which is used to support Black Lake.
Another step under consideration is selling the Black Lake Golf Course, which opened in the June of 2000. Construction of the Black Lake Golf Course was a pet project of the late Stephen P. Yokich. Yokich served as UAW President from 1995 until shortly before his death in August 2002.
Selling the golf course, which apparently has lost money since it opened, could alleviate some of the union's financial pressures, sources said. The union does not publish a separate financial statement for the golf course.
One problem with selling the golf course is that the union probably would have to give up more land to make it attractive to a resort developer, according to a union member familiar with the layout of the course.
The union also is looking at reducing the size of the union's staff, consolidating one or more of the union's regional offices and finding ways to sell more of the union's other real estate holdings. Some of the union halls are in neighborhoods bypassed by development but others include properties such as the former regional office at 13 Mile Road and I-75 that became redundant when the union built a new office for UAW Region 1 in Warren.
The union already has withdrawn its support for the UBN Radio network, another project that began under Yokich. The network, which was organized to put a liberal, pro-union voice on the air, was hobbled by lawsuits and earlier this month its broadcast studio in Detroit was shut down. The radio network was costing the union as much as $75,000 per month, union sources said.
Any changes in Black Lake, which is deeply enmeshed in union lore, are bound to painful to the union.
The northern Michigan retreat was the favorite project of the legendary Walter P. Reuther. Reuther and his wife, May, died in May 1970 in a plane crash in northern Michigan while on their way to inspect the development, which was conceived as an educational and family retreat for union members.
At Yokich's behest, the union spent more than $26 million in the late 1990s modernizing and restoring the buildings at Black Lake, which generally is sealed off from nonUAW visitors.

�The Oakland Press 2003
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