Rank and File Auto Workers to Take On Concessions

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2010/11/rank-and-file-auto-workers-take-concessions

by Al Benchich | Fri, 11/19/2010 - 3:17pm

How do rank and file auto workers create the awareness and solidarity at our local unions to fight concessions in the upcoming Big Three contract talks?

Contracts with Ford, GM, and Chrysler expire in September 2011. Both GM and Chrysler workers gave up the right to strike when the United Auto Workers negotiated the government bankruptcy/bailout contracts last year. Those contracts included big concessions, especially for new hires, who were placed on a permanent half-pay scale, with no pensions. In fall 2009 Ford workers voted 3-1 not to reopen their contract to match the new “pattern” of givebacks at Chrysler and GM.

Auto workers have reason to worry that our union leaders won’t be trying to recoup our losses from the big profits the companies are now making. UAW President Bob King recently indicated that he didn’t want to put one company at a disadvantage to the other companies because “that wouldn’t be fair.”

He was quoted in the Detroit newspaper saying: “We know it’s pretty hard to support a family and everything, on a $15-an-hour wage, but we also know that we have to keep General Motors and Ford and Chrysler competitive.”

Auto workers met November 14 at a conference convened by the rank-and-file group Autoworkers Caravan, along with Factory Rat and Warriors of Labor. The conference was held at the University of Toledo in the shadow of a large wind turbine generator and adjacent to a solar panel farm—the kind of green products that Autoworkers Caravan has advocated be produced at converted auto plants.

Several dozen active and retired workers came from GM, Ford, Chrysler, Jeep, and Delphi plants. Participants took inspiration from the recent struggles at UAW Local 23 at the GM Metal Fab plant in Indianapolis and Local 5960 members from the GM Lake Orion plant in Michigan.

FULL story at link.