Auto Worker Caravan

"NO TO A JOBLESS RECOVERY!"
Auto Worker Rally at the North American International Auto Show
Mon., January 11th, 10:30am - Noon

As auto workers, we believe it's necessary to address the economic and environmental crisis our entire nation faces. Policies can change if working families demand it:

Save Jobs and Communities • The auto industry still stands at the center of the American economy, directly employing and indirectly affecting the lives of millions. We need to retool the industry to meet the challenge of today's world.

Transform the Industry, Save the Environment • Congress needs to establish a new national industrial policy that will direct, plan, and finance the transformation of the auto industry by converting all the closed plants. We need to expand to produce not only fuel-efficient automobiles and electric cars but green energy technologies beginning with building a mass transit infrastructure (buses, light rail and high-speed trains). Retool factories to manufacture wind and water turbines. Auto workers can be the basis for stopping the planet's warming! Put workers back to work manufacturing what we need to get out of this environmental and economic crisis.

A National Single-Payer Health System • The health care bills passed by the House and the Senate subsidize the health insurance companies. They will not cover everyone and reinforce a two-tiered health system. When pressed, even the Big Three concede that a national health plan would save them billions. By extending Medicare to all we can quickly build an efficient national system that spends a minimum on administrative costs and a maximum on health.

Employee Free Choice Act (Card Check) • The majority of workers want to join unions but each year thousands are intimidated and fired because of corporate programs designed to bully workers. Employee Free Choice would make it possible for workers to join unions and to negotiate contracts that will improve wages, benefits and working conditions. Workers who belong to unions make an average of 20% more than non-union workers. Higher-waged jobs build a robust economy.

Contact: Al Benchich, ajbenchich@mac.com, 586-489-5838, or Wendy Thompson, wthomp4490@aol.com, 313-892-7974

Save the date: Saturday, January 23, 2010, 10:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
WHICH WAY FORWARD FOR TODAY’S AUTOWORKERS?
Metropolitan Hotel–Detroit Airport
31500 Wick Road—Romulus, MI 48174—734-467-8000
Please RSVP or for more info: e-mail: rankfileautomtg@gmail.com or call 734-272-7651.
More info at www.soldiersofsolidarity.com.
Click here to download a PDF flyer for the meeting.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 7, 2010

Contact: Dianne Feeley, 313-843-2125; 734-272-7651 or feeleyd@earthlink.net
Contact: Frank Hammer, 313-863-3219 or fkhammer@ameritech.net
Websites: www.autoworkercaravan.org

WHAT: Public rally against a “jobless recovery”
WHO: Autoworker Caravan - a group of auto workers, retirees, & supporters
WHERE: North American International Auto Show, Cobo Center , Detroit , MI
WHEN: Monday, January 11, 2010 (Press Day), 10:30 AM to Noon

The Autoworker Caravan, a rank and file organization of active and retired autoworkers and supporters, is organizing a demonstration in front of the North American International Auto Show at Cobo Center on January 11, 2010 (Press Day). The rally’s central demand is for Michigan workers to be re-employed as part of a conversion to a green economy, thereby reviving “ Main St. ” - as opposed to “ Wall St. ” - and simultaneously helping to reverse the growing threat of global warming.

The 2010 Rally follows a similar demonstration organized one year ago that challenged pending plant closings and layoffs in the wake of the Wall St disaster that resulted in a steep drop in car sales. The subsequent bankruptcies, plant closings and layoffs have contributed to an official Michigan unemployment rate of 14.7% - the highest in the nation.

The solution promoted by the government, auto companies, and the UAW is to salvage what are increasingly global corporations at the expense of U.S. autoworkers’ and retirees’ livelihoods. Jobs are being eliminated as workers are whipsawed plant against plant within – and across – US borders, to strip away union-won standards in a “race to the bottom.” This is what government officials refer to as a “jobless recovery,” a concept thoroughly rejected by Michigan ’s autoworkers.

Meanwhile, there is now international recognition that countries and peoples around the world must reduce their “carbon footprint” immediately if we are to help prevent some of the worst consequences of climate change. Michigan and especially Detroit can be leaders in converting to clean energy and transportation, comparable to the rapid changes made by government to the auto industry at the beginning of WW2. Today’s autoworkers are demanding a massive infusion of government funds to convert idle plants and retrain/rehire laid-off workers to produce components for clean, renewable energy and for public transit. Old transportation systems must give way to new ones to reduce reliance on a significant source of carbon emissions – the gasoline-powered cars, trucks and SUVs which continue to be displayed at the auto show, oblivious to the danger they pose to the planet.

“Autoworkers at this year’s rally,” according to Wendy Thompson, a retired autoworker and one of the demonstration organizers, “will be demanding JOBS, JOBS, JOBS – but not just any jobs. We want good jobs in a revitalized manufacturing sector that will help reduce global climate change.” In the words of UAW-GM retiree Frank Hammer: “President Obama committed to massive support for the devastated, auto-producing centers of the Midwest and to move forward on the environment – we intend to hold him to these promises.”

# # #

More than 50 auto workers and supporters signed this letter that was delivered to President Obama's staff while he was visiting Macomb Community College in Warren, MI on July 14. The letter asks Obama's team to think big about the auto crisis--and listen to auto workers.

We are still collecting signatures from auto workers and supporters so if you would like to sign, as either an auto worker or as a supporter, send your name and identification to fkhammer@ameritech.net. Please feel free to circulate this letter.

Click here to read and print the letter to Obama.

More than 200 picketed at the Ren Cen on June 16, while AAM CEO Dick Dauch and ex-gov John Engler were giving their talks at the National Business Summit. The picket included auto workers from a number of different plants in Michigan and Ohio, and many labor and social justice activists in the Detroit area. There was a lot of energy among the participants and quite a few media interviewed various people.

Click here for photos

Following the picket we marched to Grand Circus Park, also in downtown Detroit, which functioned as the HQ for the People's Summit, and where there had been tents and tables set up.

We held a rally at Grand Circus Park and a number of autoworkers and retirees spoke including Frank Hammer, Gregg Shotwell, Tony Browning, Ignacio Meneses, Martha Grevatt and myself. Jesse Jackson also spoke.

AUTO RETIREE ROUNDTABLE

The Real News filmed the picket and rally and asked if we could, at the end of the rally, pull together a meeting of retirees. I believe something like 9 of us got together for a conversation of more than an hour. We talked about our lives and what the economic crisis in auto means for us.

Click here to watch all five videos of the conversation.
--Dianne Feeley, American Axle retiree

Join auto workers Tuesday, June 16 at a demonstration to save jobs in front of GM Headquarters/Renaissance Center from 12:00 noon to 2:00 pm.
American Axle CEO Dick Dauch and former Governor of Michigan, John Engler will be addressing the National Business Summit at the same time.

A picket in front of the Renaissance Center will be followed by a Hart Plaza.
The picket and rally is being organized as part of the People's Summit, a 4-day tent city at Grand Circus Park organized by Detroiters in protest of the National Business Summit, a meeting of CEOs and heads of corporations from across the country being held in Detroit. Workshops at the tent city will be held after the rally.

Download a leaflet by clicking here.

Why we're going to rally and attend the People's Summit

I look forward to seeing old friends and meeting new friends at The People's Summit. We'll share food, laughs, and ideas about how we can fight to win."

--Gregg Shotwell, author of Live, Bait & Ammo, Delphi retiree

We were told April 29, before the concessions vote, that there were no additional plant closings. On April 30 Chrysler and the Auto Task Force told our elected officials that our plant was not closing. One day later in bankruptcy court Chrysler announced that ours was one of eight plants that would be discarded as "bad assets." We were double-crossed! I'm joining the Autoworker Caravan at the Peoples Summit to say "No human being is a bad asset.

--Martha Grevatt, Executive Board Member, UAW Local 122

I'm going to be downtown Tuesday afternoon June 16, at 12:00 pm, because we need a new trade policy, a new industrial policy, a new health care policy for the 21st Century. It was Labor who pulled us out of the Great Depression, it was Labor who built our infrastructure and it's Labor who is going to pull us out of the latest Economic Crisis--so why are we treated like the enemy?

--Jim Theisen, Chrysler worker

On April 26, the UAW announced a tentative agreement with Chrysler that, as members were told details, revealed all the cuts contained in the Ford UAW agreement (such as loss of bonuses, loss of cost of living wage increases, and loss of break time) plus new language that allows the company to hire more temporary workers and to cap the wages of entry-level workers at, well, entry-level.

Download the highlights of the tentative agreement here.

Download the following leaflet by clicking here.

Doesn't One Concession Just Lead to Another?

When the UAW and Ford reached a tentative agreement in late February, rank-and-file auto workers poured over the new language, finding changes to break time, paid holidays, wage cuts, and skilled trades jobs that seemed more about weakening the union than fixing the limping industry. Read below for a draft statement from auto workers encouraging General Motors and Chrysler workers to vote no on their impending agreements. A link to the tentative agreement is available by clicking here.
Read the full draft of the leaflet at www.autoworkercaravan.org/whyvoteconcessions.

After kicking off a petition campaign at the Jan 11 rally in front of the North American International Auto Show, auto workers from across the Midwest talked to their coworkers about the strings attached to the auto industry bailout money. Hundreds of petition signatures poured in.

On February 5, auto workers handed off the first round of more than 400 signatures to staff of Michigan Representative John Conyers in Detroit. A second set was mailed to President Obama.

Since then, hundreds more petitions have been collected by auto workers desperate to make a point - we need policies that will shape the way our industries work for the years to come, not more cuts to worker wages, benefits, and working conditions.

Click here to read the letter auto workers sent to President Obama along with the petitions.

Auto workers have called for a rally on January 11 at 1 pm outside of Cobo Hall on press day of the North American International Auto Show. With news of the Bush administration's $17.4 billion loan to the auto industry being tied to game-changing concessions that could erode wages across the board, auto workers will rally for long-term solutions for the auto industry's problems that don't unfairly blame workers for failed corporate policies.
Download a flyer here. Click to read more.

Retired and active auto workers wrote an open letter to their counterparts in non-union auto plants across the country to express solidarity and a hope that auto workers across the industry could work together to stop corporate and government attacks on workers' benefits, wages and working conditions. Read the letter by clicking here.