The UAW’s push for concessions
Members of United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 23 are organizing to prevent union officials from ramming through a vote on a deal that would cut wages in half as part of General Motors' deal to sell off its big stamping plant in Indianapolis.
Rank-and-file members of Local 23 rebelled at a union meeting August 15 when an official from the International called for a vote on an agreement to promote the sale of the plant to J.D. Norman Industries of Illinois, which wants to cut pay from $29 an hour to $15.50. If the metal fabrication plant isn't sold, it will simply be shuttered, GM says.
Despite GM's threat of closure, Local 23 members had already rejected concessions. Yet the International went behind their backs and negotiated the givebacks anyway--a clear violation of the UAW constitution, which bars any UAW officer from bargaining with an employer "without first obtaining the approval of the local union." So when UAW International official Mike Grimes tried to address the Local 23 membership meeting, he was shouted off the stage with cries of "traitor!" and "Go home! Get out! This isn't your house!" The scene was captured on video.
Now the UAW International has arranged a third party to run a mail ballot--another violation of union procedure. Union activists are organizing to document workers' votes to pre-empt any effort to rig the outcome.
, a member of UAW Local 23, is calling for support from UAW members and labor activists as he organizes alongside coworkers to fight his own union's attempt to ram through concessions.
FELLOW UAW members, we are at a point in history where we must make a choice--a choice to be dismissed and forgotten or to be a part of history. Over the last four years, we have faced a full-fledged assault on the working class. We have repeatedly been asked to give concessions under pressure from corporate, government and public opinion. All this has been done under the guise of recession.
Today, we are witnessing the unsettling pattern of our own International Union forcing locals to make unheard-of concessions. UAW Local 23 is being asked to take a 50 percent wage cut among other anti-union demands. The contract proposed to our members will set up a UAW shop with nonunion wages, benefits and working conditions.
In the larger scheme of things, this will help GM leverage other UAW plants to accept wage and benefit cuts under the threat of shipping work to UAW Local 23.
The Indianapolis Metal Fab is a 2.1 million-square-foot facility. With J.D. Norman at the helm, the Indy Metal Fab will undercut union work. The proposed contract will give management unprecedented authority to oppress the working class. The UAW is going into negotiations next year with the Big Three. It is important that we let our International leaders know that we are not accepting any more wage and benefit concessions. In fact, it is time for us to get back what we lost.
I'm writing this letter to inform the membership that it is time for us to let the International know that we, the members, are the highest authority. They seem to have forgotten that.
Mo Davison, the UAW Region 3 director, has said on record that he is in favor of union members taking a 50 percent wage cut, and that there would be thousands of people lined up outside of the Indy Metal Fab plant for those jobs. I expect a member of management to make those kinds of remarks, but not someone who we pay to protect our wages and benefits. The International [officers] voted themselves a pay increase at the Constitutional Convention. Then, Mo Davison turns around and tells us that he and the rest of the International officers endorse a 50 percent pay cut for members of UAW Local 23.
We, as UAW members, are descendants and benefactors of the labor movement. UAW members struggled on picket lines and at sit-ins to win the wages, benefits and working conditions that we enjoy today. My grandfather walked the picket line under the simple concept of doing what's best, not for himself alone, but for everyone. What we do today is what we do for the future. All I ask is for support, a show of solidarity.
The Indianapolis GM Stamping Rank and File Committee is organizing a solidarity rally Saturday, September 25, at 3 p.m. at UAW Region 3 Headquarters, 5850 Fortune Circle West, Indianapolis. It is important that we all be there, not only for ourselves, but also for our fellow UAW members as we head into negotiations in 2011.
I will be at the rally because I owe it to my grandfather and my grandchildren. We need to make the choice to make history or be made by history, to be warriors or to be victims. I choose to make history. I hope you will stand with me.
