Kansas City GM workers first to vote against UAW sellout deal
Workers at the General Motors Fairfax Assembly plant in Kansas City, Kansas have voted decisively against the tentative agreement reached by the United Auto Workers. It was the first vote on the four-year deal that will cover 53,000 GM workers nationwide.
In a rebuke to the UAW, which sought to ram through the deal only two days after releasing the details of the agreement, 63 percent of production workers and 67 percent of skilled trade workers voted “no” on Friday and Saturday. The factory, which produces the Chevrolet Malibu and Buick LaCrosse models, employs 3,230 workers.
Well aware that a snap vote would incite opposition from rank-and-file workers, the UAW nevertheless opted for this strategy because UAW President Dennis Williams, Vice President Cindy Estrada & Co. know that the more time that workers have to study the deal, the more time they will have to build opposition. Votes at the rest of the GM plants are expected to be concluded this week.
The vote by the Kansas City workers has thrown the UAW apparatus into a crisis, and it is now redoubling its efforts to lie and threaten workers to get the deal through. In a message to Fairfax workers, UAW Local 31 President Vicki Hale wrote that union officials from across the US held a conference call after the “no” vote. Top UAW executives told Hale and other local officers that if workers defeated the contract nationwide there would be no alternative but to strike, adding that such a walkout “absolutely does not guarantee further gains.”
Read more: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/11/02/auto-n02.html
