A long battle that’s not over
THE FREIGHTLINER Five remain defiant. After an arbitrators' decision that reinstated two of the workers for their role in an April 2007 strike action, all five remain united in a continued fight to win all of their jobs back.
In five separate rulings, arbitrators ordered management at the Freightliner truck plant in Cleveland, N.C., to reinstate Franklin Torrence with back pay, minus six months. Glenna Swinford was also reinstated, but without back pay. Yet even though all five arbitrators heard the same evidence, Robert Whiteside, chair of the union's shop committee, remains fired, as do Allen Bradley and David Crisco. All five workers were elected representatives of the union's bargaining committee.
In the 19 months since the strike action, the workers have built an international solidarity campaign that has involved meetings with rank-and-file union members and supporters in cities across the U.S., as well as meetings in Germany with workers at Freightliner's parent company, Daimler.
While battling the company, however, the Freightliner Five have had to take on the president of United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 3520 and the UAW International as well. The five were put on trial by their local union president, but were acquitted by a jury of rank-and-file members.
The local then denied them membership on a spurious charge of failure to pay dues, and the UAW's International Executive Board upheld that decision. Even worse, representatives of the UAW International testified on behalf of Freightliner management during the arbitration hearings.
At a meeting in Seattle where Allen Bradley was a featured speaker (his speech can be read here), the other members of the Freightliner Five sent solidarity letters that were read out at the forum. Those letters appear below.
Robert Whiteside
FIRST, I would like to say thank you to all the brothers and sisters who have helped the five of us in our struggle for justice.
As for Allen, David and I, we did not receive any justice in our arbitration ruling. Justice is a hard thing to achieve in a union full of corruption and company intimidation. Each one of us will have to decide where we go from here. Injustices will continue to happen to the rank and file. Wounded soldiers will be left on the battlefield until the rank and file take up arms--figuratively speaking--against union corruption and corporate greed.
Our unions in the South are experiencing membership losses as well as the large membership losses in the North. Organizing is needed in the South. As for myself, I will continue to be involved in the labor movement, fighting for workers' rights in the community and in other organizations to better the community for all.
Brothers and sisters, I believe in unions, but not union corruption and company intimidation. We still need your support in our struggle for justice.
My brothers and sisters, the time is now for change within our unions. Help us make change a reality in our union.
Franklin Torrence
FIRST OF all, I would like to thank each and every one of you for the support that you have shown us during this struggle. It has been a long and hard battle, and it's still not over.
Last week, we received some bittersweet news concerning our arbitrations. Glenna and I were reinstated to our jobs. Unfortunately three of our brothers--Robert, Allen and David--did not receive favorable decisions.
The UAW did a poor job in representing us in our arbitrations. We had no control of the arbitrations whatsoever. The UAW would not introduce any evidence that showed wrongdoing on their part. We requested that some very important evidence be introduced, which could have won the grievance easily. But the UAW would not introduce it. The UAW had no intention of winning this case for us. We will continue to fight with our brothers until justice has been served.
The labor movement is going downhill very quickly here in the South. We must change the way unions operate in order for unions to survive. The rank and file must stand up and fight when we see this kind of injustice in our unions. Our struggle should be every worker's struggle. We must reform our unions. The top-down authority must be changed to bottom-up, rank-and-file authority. This is the way unions were formed and meant to be.
Once again, thank you for all your support.
Glenna Swinford
GREETINGS, BROTHERS and sisters. I am sorry that I could not be here with you today and be part of this great event.
Over the last 19 months, we as a group have had to seek solidarity and support from other unions and organizations such as your own. Never once did the UAW or our Local 3520 President George Drexel IV ask the five of us if we needed help. Not once did they even bother to pick up the phone and call one of us just to see how we were doing.
What they did was illegally take our membership and union offices from us and kick us out of the union--and they call their actions union solidarity.
In the name of solidarity, the UAW and our local union president testified against us at our internal union trial and arbitration hearing. After arbitration, the UAW and our local union president had the gall to brag about how well our arbitration went.
Let me ask you a question: How well did you think it went, when the attorney that was hired by the UAW told the five of us that we are not his clients, but the UAW is? The attorney told us that the UAW must review and approve all evidence before it could be used during our arbitration.
There was crucial evidence that was deliberately left out during the hearing and the briefs that where submitted to the arbitrators. Their action sealed our fate--but remember, brothers and sisters, this was all done in the name of union solidarity.
What is the UAW afraid of? Do they think that the five of us will lead the masses to a revolt and help to bring about the long-overdue change that is so badly needed in the UAW today?
Or are they just simply afraid that this monster of a machine that they have created over the years will not be able to disguise itself any longer, and that the truth will finally come out--that the UAW is just another big corporation no different from the companies that it organizes, with concerns for their profitability and not workers' rights.
David Crisco
FIRST OF all, I would like to thank each and every one of you for all you have done for the five of us. As all of you know, this has been an unimaginable journey for us. A journey that none of us could ever have envisioned.
We, as many of you, felt security in our jobs and our union. As you all know now, that was a false security. It has been 19 long and painful months since we stood up for our local and did what our membership asked us to do. In that time, we have been accused of being liars, crooks, thieves, and even compared to murderers.
The fact is that the five of us are nothing more than union members. We are husbands, sons, wives, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and friends. We are you, your coworker, your neighbor. We are just five people who were voted into positions in our local union to try to make it better. To try to move forward. To try to give our families and yours a more secure way of life. Like all of you here, we were trying to keep the middle class alive in America and move the labor movement forward in the South.
It's no secret that unions are strongly opposed in the Southeastern states of our country. Most of these states are "right-to-work" states that have fought diligently to keep unions out. This is where the biggest recession in the labor movement has taken place. Yes, our struggle has been heartbreaking. Sadly, it does not compare to the heartbreak of losing hard-fought ground in a state that is so anti-union. In a battle as tough as the labor movement in the South is, all ground must be held, and any losses are devastating.
Now we face an even greater hurdle. We have fought with all we had and never lost hope or faith. Now we are caught in a war in which we don't have the arsenal to stand and fight. We still have a few ways to win the battle, but we are out of ammunition. We do not have the funds to seek the remedies of our injustice. We are right where the UAW and the company knew we would be.
Phil Bezaire, the plant human resources director at Freightliner, told us 19 months ago in reference to a union strike, "We don't care what you do. We don't believe your people will support you!" He was referring to the people in our local union. What he did not count on was you!
He does not understand that when you tell a union member, "your people," he is talking about ALL the union brothers and sisters around the world! He believes "solidarity" is just a word that union members shout in crowds. He knows nothing of the struggles that union members around the world have endured to get where we are today. He firmly believes that he is only fighting a small local union from Cleveland, N.C. To prove him wrong would be a monumental point in the labor movement across the U.S. and the world.
He is not alone in his beliefs. The UAW has watched this man, and this company, try to destroy our lives and crush the labor movement in the South. They have stripped us of our union membership and our positions! They have cut their own throats to save face with Freightliner. Why? We need to remind the UAW that unions are only successful when they are built from the ground up! That the membership is the highest authority. That the members are the dues-payers, and officers have to be protected when fighting for their people.
In closing, I would love to be with all of you now to thank you in person. To sit among you and enjoy the camaraderie that defines unionism. There is nowhere I would rather be than rubbing shoulders with my union brothers and sisters. Unfortunately, funds do not allow me to do so.
Along with the fact that, thanks to the UAW, I am no longer even a union member in good standing! Thankfully, the one thing they can't change is that I will always be a union member in my heart, and among my fellow brothers and sisters. That they can't take from me!
Go home to your families and your coworkers and be thankful. Be thankful you have them and be thankful you have a union. Be strong and wise in choosing your battles. I ask that you keep us in your prayers and in your union halls.
If you can assist us in funding our legal battles, rest assured it will be a giant step for us all. The outstretched arms of our fellow union members around the world is all we have left to fight with. It is the one element that the UAW and Freightliner do not believe exist in our battle. Ironically, it is the element that can bring justice!
God bless you all.
