Auto Workers' Union Holds Jobs Protest

[Communist]

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Auto Workers' Union Holds Jobs Protest (http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/detroit-auto-show-auto-union-holds-jobs-protest/)

By RICHARD CHANG

January 11, 2010


DETROIT -- Nearly 100 auto workers and labor activists
demonstrated in snowy, blustery conditions near the
North American International Auto Show (http://www.naias.com/) here, calling
for a federal jobs recovery bill, a national
single-payer health system and a green industrial
policy.

"A recovery without jobs is no recovery at all," said
Frank Hammer (http://www.archive.org/details/UAW_Autoworkers_Future_of_Manufacturing.Health_Car e.Green_Jobs_Press_Conference_Part1_Hammer), former president of United Auto Workers
Local 909 (http://www.uawlocal909.org/) and one of the rally's organizers. He cited
Michigan's unemployment rate (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/laus.nr0.htm), pegged at 14.7 percent in
December. In Detroit, the jobless rate was 27 percent.

Carrying a sign that said "Job One Is Job Creation," a
retired General Motors (http://www.gm.com/utilities/contact_us/contact.jsp?deep=form&community) employee, Miriam Pickens, chided
U.A.W. (http://www.uaw.org/) national leadership for not aggressively going
after a federal jobs recovery measure. "I'm very
frustrated with the U.A.W. right now. They're not
fighting as hard as the rank and file," she said. "They
need to push harder, but I think they're afraid" of
alienating Detroit automakers.

Demonstrators encircled the sidewalk, some of them
waving American flags and chanting "A job is a right,
fight, fight, fight." Some signs said "Rebuild America
with American workers," and "Invest in jobs, not in
Wall Street."

Reacting to this morning's announcement that Ford swept
North American Car and Truck of the Year (http://www.northamericancaroftheyear.org/) honors, Ron
Lare (http://www.labornotes.org/blog/30), a demonstration organizer, said it was
"outrageous to cut the pay of new hires just as they're
showing off their new models."

Under terms of recent concessions, new workers at
Detroit manufacturers will make $14 an hour, about half
what workers with more seniority make.

Mr. Hammer said the country would benefit from a
national industrial policy that transforms the auto
industry through the conversion of shuttered plants
into factories that use green technology to produce
energy-saving mass transit systems, such as light rail,
in addition to fuel-efficient and electric cars.

"We can help the cause of global warming while putting
people back to work," he said. "The auto industry has
been slow to understand what role they have to play in
climate change."

At the onset of World War II, he said, it took the
federal government less than a year to convert auto
plants into military plants.

"We need the same kind of deployment now, except this
is a different kind of war," said Mr. Hammer. "This is
a war against unemployment and climate change."

While lauding the auto show's unveiling of several
eco-friendly vehicles (http://www.mlive.com/naias/), Mr. Lare said that would not be
enough to reduce the carbon footprint. "It's a good
direction to go rather than internal combustion, but if
they're selling for around $35,000 each, not enough
people will be able to buy them," he said.

"So that ain't going to cut it."



* Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company * Privacy
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[Martin Blank]

There were more like 40-50 there, including me (very briefly). It was cold as fuck, but that only partially accounts for the small attendance. There was a combination of factors for why people didn't show up, including political reasons.

Just down the street, the teabagger fascists were protesting in front of GM HQ against "government takeovers". They had about the same amount of people -- maybe a little less. Some workers wanted to go deal with these fuckers, but the organizers of the pro-Obama "green jobs" protest by autoworkers (interestingly enough, all members of Solidarity) wanted to "distinguish themselves" from the teabaggers ... by staying as far away from them as possible. That turned off some of the potential attendees.

In the end, the Soli organizers ended the rally and pulled participants away before the teabaggers decided to head down to Cobo, directly crossing in front of the area where the workers' protest had been.

[Communist]

NJR I forgot you're in Detroit! So half as many as the freaking New York Times reported? Thanks for the personal perspective on that, and why.

[Martin Blank]

NJR I forgot you're in Detroit! So half as many as the freaking New York Times reported? Thanks for the personal perspective on that, and why.

Yeah, I don't know what it is about this guy from the Times. Unlike 99.9999% of bourgeois journalists, this guy inflates numbers instead of minimizing them. I think he's incredibly sympathetic to the autoworkers, so he does what he can to make them look larger than they are when they protest.

I have to admit, it was amusing watching Ron, a self-described Trotskyist I know going way back, defending Obama and his "bailout" of GM and Chrysler, and pleading with the Democrats for "green jobs" funded by "stimulus" bribe money.

ON EDIT: Because of my physical issues, I can only make it to a few of these kinds of things a year, and this is usually one of them.

[Communist]

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Detroit activists challenge ‘jobless recovery’ at auto show (http://www.workers.org/2010/us/detroit_0121/)

Published Jan 14, 2010 10:02 PM

http://www.workers.org/2010/us/detroit_0121.jpg (http://www.bailoutthepeople.org/)


Members of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shutoff (http://www.moratorium-mi.org/About.shtml)s (http://wwppitt.weebly.com/) joined activists with the Autoworkers Caravan (http://www.autoworkercaravan.org/) and advocates for (http://www.workers.org/2009/us/health_care_0813/) single (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-payer_health_care)- (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialized_medicine)payer (http://cthealth.server101.com/the_case_for_universal_health_care_in_the_united_s tates.htm) health care (http://www.workers.org/2009/us/dh_1203/) at a demonstration against the “jobless recov (http://www.workers.org/2009/us/jobless_recovery_0910/)e (http://www.workers.org/2009/us/goldstein_1126/)ry (http://www.workers.org/2009/us/jobless_recovery_0910/)” outside the North American International Auto Show in Detroit on Jan. 11. Workers, including many retired and unemployed, chanted, “A job is a right! We’re gonna fight, fight, fight!” Media from around the world came out to videotape the protest and interview participants.

After the rally, the Moratorium NOW! Coalition sponsored (http://panafricannews.blogspot.com/2010/01/moratorium-now-to-host-devastation-tour.html) a “corporate devastation tour” of the city. A coalition press release stated: “Detroit has the highest unemployment rate in the nation at 44.8 percent, stemming from decades of layoffs in the auto industry, predatory lending by the financial institutions and redlining by the insurance companies and bond-rating agencies. While the sponsors of the auto show will present one side of the city, our organization is providing an opportunity for the national and world communities to witness firsthand the degree of downsizing, deindustrialization and the consequent unemployment and poverty which have been the result of decades of corporate policies that have devastated working people and the poor.”

Two Korean newspaper journalists attended the tour, as well as a reporter from Voice of America (http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/). They viewed closed auto plants, a closed and vandalized public housing project, foreclosed homes and shuttered businesses. Coalition organizers continue to press for a moratorium on plant closings, foreclosures, evictions and utility shutoffs and for a declaration of a state of economic emergency in Michigan. Activists are demanding a national, federally-funded public works program to put workers back to work and provide the services desperately needed in our communities.

— Report and photo by Kris Hamel

http://static.eventful.com/images/edpborder250/I0-001/002/003/354-6.jpeg (http://www.moratorium-mi.org/)


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[Communist]

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Building on ‘no concessions’ vote at Ford (http://www.workers.org/2010/us/ford_0211/)

Autoworker activists discuss challenging the bosses’ agenda

By Martha Grevatt
Feb 6, 2010


On Jan. 23 over 100 autoworkers met in Detroit for a conference sponsored by rank-and-file activist groups Soldiers of Solidarity, Autoworkers Caravan and Factory Rats Unite to take up a truly compelling question: Where do we go from here?

In the past few years members of the UAW have seen their ranks in the workplace fall precipitously. At the same time, under threat of permanent job loss, workers at General Motors/Delphi, Ford, Chrysler and parts suppliers have been coerced into giving up pay and benefits that took decades of struggle to attain. During the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies workers there gave up the right to strike.

Just to ask, “Where do we go?” implied it is still possible for workers to fight back, and thus posed a viable alternative to resignation and despair.

African-American, Latino/a and white; women and men; retirees and youth, dozens of workers took the floor — not only to voice their anger at the auto companies and compliant union officials, but to search for ways to resist givebacks and downsizing. Participants came from Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Minnesota, New York and Ontario, Canada.

The largest group of workers came from Ford. A lively discussion brought to life the grassroots, semispontaneous movement that led to last fall’s defeat of contract modifications pushed by the UAW leadership that would have traded away the right to strike for a $1,000 bonus and dubious promises of job security. The concessions — more or less equal to what GM and Chrysler workers gave up during the bankruptcies — went down by a margin of 3-to-1. This was the first time in UAW history that workers rejected contract language recommended by the leadership.

“We don’t want to lose that ability to strike,” stated Eric Truss, a shop floor activist in UAW Local 600 at the multiplant Ford Rouge complex. Truss came to the meeting with his mother, a Ford worker; his father, a Ford retiree; and his sister. Local 600 has a long history of militancy going back to struggles that led to union recognition in 1941.

Other workers described how multiple leaflets began appearing simultaneously, ranging from detailed explanations of why the concessions were bad to those with just two words: “Vote No.” At the same time an unprecedented number of local officials opposed the International’s recommendations. One worker held up a newspaper with a headline on Ford’s profits.


After the Ford workers shared their experiences, Jerry Tucker, a former regional director, reviewed the history of autoworker givebacks going back to 1980.

The discussion continued around the multiple issues facing auto workers. A key issue is “whipsawing” — the pitting of workers in one plant against another, dangling the carrot of new work in the plant to squeeze more concessions. This led to the topic of cross-border whipsawing.

Rather than blame Mexican and Canadian workers for the loss of their jobs, this group passed a resolution of solidarity for a sister in the Canadian Auto Workers union to bring back home.

Additional comments centered on the need to unite with the broader working-class community, to support immigrant workers, and for a labor movement that is anti-racist and anti-sexist. All the discussion tied in to the central issue of fighting to hold on to our jobs, wages and benefits.

The next immediate fight is at five GM plants that the company recently took back from Delphi, its former parts division that GM spun off in 1999. In 2007 workers at then-bankrupt Delphi agreed to major concessions, including pay cuts for nonskilled trade workers of over $10 an hour.

Now GM is demanding the breakup of that master agreement, insisting that each of those five plants have its own separate agreement. Not surprisingly, the individual agreements GM is seeking all contain further concessions, including pay cuts for skilled workers. GM workers won the right to be under one master agreement after the victory of the Flint sit-down strike in 1937.

This could have been a conference where workers merely blew off steam and went home. Instead, building on the success at Ford, they have already begun to resist GM’s latest attacks. The latest bulletin by Soldiers of Solidarity states:
“Workers have to make change happen by strikes, by Work to Rule, by organizing a gang and practicing “protected concerted activities.” Some of these practices make workers uncomfortable at first. Thanks to years of concessions we are rusty at fighting back. But the more you practice the better you get.
“It is the worker who creates the wealth on the job and controls production. If you want workplace justice and some dignity then MAKE THEM DO IT!
“When the wolf comes for your lunch, you don’t have to unwrap it for him, heat it up, put it in a clean bowl, and spoon feed him with a smile. If you feed the wolf (concessions) he will be back for more tomorrow and every day thereafter. Don’t feed the wolf!”


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Articles copyright 1995-2010 Workers World (http://www.workersworld.net/wwp/pmwiki.php/Main/AboutThisSite).
Verbatim copying and distribution of entire
article is permitted in any medium without
royalty provided this notice is preserved.