In October 2005 when Delphi declared bankruptcy and threatened to cut
workers’ wages by two-thirds, eliminate pensions and health care for retirees, on top
of other radical hostilities, the International UAW didn’t respond publicly or privately. We were under attack and there was no leadership to be found.
After Soldiers Of Solidarity formed to actively disrupt production with Work to
Rule tactics, the International UAW responded by saying that they had a plan but they
couldn’t tell us what it was. They didn’t want to reveal their strategy.
Then they followed their usual drill and told us to vote for Democrats. Midterm elections were
almost a year away. A political solution for our emergency was dead on arrival. They
may as well have sent each local union a casket for their solidarity memorabilia.
We held our first meeting in Grand Rapids the first week of November, a month
after Delphi’s announcement of bankruptcy...It was at the third meeting in Saginaw that we decided on the name Soldiers of Solidarity. The idea originated with Miguel Chavarria who wrote:
"We the People are at war. We need to develop Soldiers, not career opportunists.
It will take time and patience, there will be set backs and victories. Given time and
effort, the law of multiplication will prevail. If one goes out and trains two soldiers; and
they go out and do the same, and this continues, we will have our army. We the
People are the Union."
We felt like we were engaged in battle. We felt that solidarity was a practical
solution to an urgent need and our best defense. We decided not to allow social
differences or internal union politics to divide our struggle. As such, we decided
against forming a caucus within the UAW which might become a platform for “career
opportunists”. We decided against any affiliation with a political party.
We had one unifying purpose: defend workers’ rights.
The rank & file audience ran our meetings. All speeches came from the floor.
There was no authority higher than the members in attendance. We decided everything by consensus or vote.
Past history taught us that a vertical structure with totemic levels of authority
would be too easy for the company and the union to topple. Leaders are targets.
When the police asked us at pickets who the leaders were, we told them we didn’t
have any leaders. We didn’t give them an individual to arrest, harass, and intimidate.
Likewise management felt the effects of Work To Rule—they paid sixty hours
for forty hours of production—but they didn’t know who to punish.
The UAW hierarchy was infuriated by their loss of control, but we didn’t give
them a leader to victimize or compromise. Our horizontal, decentralized organization
made resistance impossible to stifle. Our best soldiers didn’t wear identification tags.
We were determined to fight back without getting fired or going on strike. On the
outside, we would be right where management wanted us. We stayed inside and we
stayed undercover.
David Cole—the son of a former President of General Motors, and the Director
of the Original Equipment Suppliers Association as well as a director of six
automotive supplier companies, and thus apparently a less than objective chairman of
the Center for Automotive Research—told the press that I was the reason that Toyota
decided not to build a plant in Michigan. The Grand Rapids Press and a local TV
station vilified me. It was a desperate act of intimidation on Cole’s part.
When I went to work the following night my machine broke down. It didn’t get
repaired and running until I left the building. Not only was production halted, but
every machine on the line that fed my machine went down and management paid
workers to sit down.
I had nothing to do with it. I never touched the machine. It was down when I
arrived. But management got the message: soldiers of solidarity fight back. Whenever
a worker is attacked management will pay the price and soldiers of solidarity will
determine how much the price is.
By February 2006 the conversation changed. Steve Miller the antagonistic CEO
of Delphi was muzzled and GM started throwing money at the problem.
Pension and health care for Delphi-UAW members was guaranteed. Early retirements and buyouts
were offered. All Delphi-UAW members were granted top priority for transfer to
other GM plants. Salary workers got screwed. They lost everything.
Hard core activists would have preferred a struggle to keep all the plants open,
but the company undermined resistance by satisfying the primary needs of the
majority of workers. More importantly a new generation of union activists was given
a model for inciting resistance in a situation where the company and the union were
united against the workers.
When workers at a GM plant in Lake Orion were threatened with a wage cut,
they organized (with the help of old soldiers) a rally at the gates of the UAW
International headquarters despite the fact they were laid off and thus not physically in
contact with one another. They used social networking tools to throw together a
picket. Gary Walkowicz and Greg Clark, two local union leaders who gained national
attention for confronting the company and the union, spoke at the rally.
Olen Ham, a GM-UAW retiree who was involved in the sitdown strike in Flint that won the UAW
recognition from GM in 1937, also spoke to the rally.
It is vitally important that the rank & file jump to the defense of anyone who
speaks on their behalf. GM and the UAW are anxious about the upcoming IPO of GM
stock. They are ruthless in defense of profit and wouldn’t hesitate to fire and/or
intimidate an outspoken defender of workers’ rights.
A new resistance is growing in the UAW. It’s unclear what direction it may take,
but the company and the company/union will have a hard time stifling the
decentralized tentacles of resistance. Workers forced to relocate will join the growing
ranks of GM Gypsies coming down the aisles with crowbars in their hands and
vengence in their smiles.
www.warriorsoflabor.com www.soldiersofsolidarity.com www.factoryrat.com
To download and distribute: https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B5DHbVf8wRzEZDBhNzI3YjEtOWRjNy00N2M4LWEwY2ItZTliMjUxYjZlNDlh&hl=en
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