Indianapolis UAW auto workers push back against GM & UAW International demands to halve wages

[Hannah Bell]

Workers at the General Motors Indianapolis Stamping Plant continued their standoff with GM and the United Auto Workers union, amid mounting pressure to accept demands to sharply reduce wages or face the loss of their jobs. On Wednesday, the Indianapolis Star carried a lead editorial denouncing workers for "stubbornness..." The editorial concluded, "the days are gone when workers at the plant could command $29 an hour in pay plus benefits."

At a union meeting on Sunday, hundreds of workers shouted down demands by the UAW leadership that they accept a fifty percent wage cut to sell the plant to JD Norman Industries. The union officials were forced to leave the building after workers prevented them from speaking.

(Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owUjzuVLY-s



***Summary & additional research***

Let me make it clear: The leadership of the local stands with the workers.

The leadership of the International were booed out because they tried to cut a deal with the new buyer IN VIOLATION OF THE MEMBERSHIP'S VOTE, BEHIND THEIR BACKS, AND IN VIOLATION OF THE UAW'S CONSTITUTION. THEY COLLABORATED WITH THE OWNERS AGAINST THE LOCAL WORKERS. THEY TRIED TO SET UP A SECRET MEETING TO GET A FAKE VOTE IN THEIR OWN FAVOR.

The stamping plant workers have a "successor" contract: that means they're guaranteed the same wages & conditions under any new ownership until 2015. They're repeatedly voted down demands to re-negotiate the contract by large majorities.

GM is divesting itself of parts & pieces in a "Chinese-style" contracting scheme, whereby GM proper would just assemble parts made by "independent" (cheap-labor) contractors. I use scare quotes because I suspect there is collusion involved. The potential buyer, JD Norman Industries (founded 2004, owned by 34-year-old former Morgan Stanley broker Justin D Norman) owns multiple stamping plants (bought up the same way), has expanded into Mexico, & is positioning himself as a supplier to the restructured North American-Mexican auto industry.

GM is using the same tactics at multiple locations, as here, where they pressured workers to accept $12/hr new hire, plus large cuts for older workers before they sold a plant to a Chinese corporation. Again, workers refused the deal:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8972770&mesg_id=8972770



***Continue article***

The Indianapolis Star carried on Wednesday a letter to the editor from a stamping plant worker, which pointed out that the UAW now owned 17.5 percent of GM and that union executives had a direct financial interest in imposing wage and benefit concessions on their members...In a discussion with the WSWS on Wednesday, stamping plant workers expressed their opposition to wage cuts and hatred of the UAW bureaucracy, whose concessions have done nothing to save jobs. Since 1986, the number of jobs at their plant has fallen from 5,600 to 650...

"The union wanted us to vote on Sunday to destroy our agreement," said Tim. "In May we overwhelmingly rejected the proposal to re-open the contract. But the union and management want us to vote again and again until they get what they want. That's how they operate. In 2007, the UAW local and the International made us vote three times until the concessions finally passed...." WORKERS WERE ANGERED THAT THE INTERNATIONAL AND REGIONAL REPRESENTATIVES HAD JUST VOTED THEMSELVES A FIVE PERCENT PAY RAISE BUT WERE CALLING ON THEM TO GIVE UP HALF THEIR WAGES.

“They just want us here to train the new hires before we lose our jobs,” said Jennifer. “JD Norman has no idea how to run a stamping plant. They need the experienced workers in order to keep it operating. That's why they can't just lay off everybody and bring in temps. If workers shut down this plant all of GM would close," she said. "That’s what happened in 1996 when we went on a four-day strike." If they were to go on strike, they would violate the no-strike clause agreed to by the UAW, she added. "They've essentially made it illegal for us to go on strike," said Angela.

"We’re fighting for us and for everyone," said Tim. "What happens here is going to happen to the next plant and the next plant. After Sunday’s meeting I got a message on my Facebook page from a worker who said, ‘keep up the fight.’ We know if they take from us now, they are just going to come back for more tomorrow."

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/aug2010/inds-a19.shtml

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1. k & r

[Hannah Bell]

2. k

[Hannah Bell]

3. k

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4. kick.

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5. k

[Hannah Bell]

6. k

[DainBramaged]

7. K&R and a comment

Those of you here who think accepting a 50% pay cut is better than nothing, in your race to the bottom, when will it be low enough that you start to realize that our corporate masters want us to be the new China?



Even the Chinese are striking against the boot of low wages, forcing manufacturers like Honda and Foxconn to acquiesce to the workers demands (even though Foxconn refuses to remove 400+ football fields of 'suicide nets' around their facilities to prevent workers from committing suicide over low wages and long hours).

[Hannah Bell]

8. +100. The corp that wanted $12/hr union workers is chinese: it'll be a US supplier for the "new" GM

[Hannah Bell]

9. KICKING

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10. k