AUTOWORKERS CARAVAN
MEDIA ADVISORY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
UAW MEMBERS AND RETIREES TO RALLY AT CONVENTION,
CALL ON THE UNION TO “CHANGE COURSE”
On Sunday, June 13, at 3:00 PM, and on Monday, June 14, at 8:30 AM, concerned members of the United Auto Workers will hold “Solidarity Rallies” at the Cobo Convention Center, where the union is holding its 35th Constitutional Convention. The rallies, called by the rank-and-file activist group Autoworkers Caravan, will take place at the front entrance of Cobo, 1 Washington Blvd., in Detroit.
The theme of the two rallies will be “one million members lost, it’s time to change course.” Issues that organizers hope to see addressed on the convention floor include: the jobs crisis in auto and the way out through the green economy, the reduction of real wages (wages after inflation) through wage and benefit concessions, the affect of “whipsawing” and multi-tier wage scales on union solidarity, the need to defend the right to strike, union democracy and leadership accountability.
“At American Axle, after a bitter two-month strike, workers took huge pay cuts in exchange for promised work,” said Wendy Thompson, an AAM retiree and former president of UAW Local 235. “Yet after the contract was signed, AAM illegally moved that work to Mexico. The UAW needs a different strategy to save jobs as well as wages and benefits.” Thompson is will be attending the convention as an alternate delegate.
Many of the rally supporters are Ford workers, who last fall overwhelmingly voted down contract changes that matched what GM and Chrysler workers gave up during bankruptcy. “At Ford we had already accepted a concession agreement in March of '09,” stated Scott Houldieson, a Chicago Ford Worker and elected delegate. “In November of '09 the union leadership promoted new concessions under the auspices of pattern bargaining. The concept of pattern bargaining was to negotiate an agreement with the strongest company and insist that the other two follow the pattern. In this case the pattern was to concede to the weakest companies (GM, Chrysler), and then attempt to have the members from the strongest (Ford) accept what the troubled companies had gotten. We saw this as our union negotiating on behalf of the company, rather than on our behalf and the results of the ratification vote showed how we felt.” The central issue in the Ford vote was protecting the right to strike.
“Over the past few months UAW activists have discussed and debated what the UAW can and must do to stop the slide to oblivion,” stated Frank Hammer, a retired UAW-GM International Representative and former President of UAW Local 909 (Warren, MI). “We are down to 355,000 members, a million less than when I hired in at GM in 1974. We are losing our Union, and our manufacturing jobs.”
According to Hammer, “The UAW has remained silent in the months leading up to the Convention about our way forward, and has neglected to solicit the views and proposals of the rank and file. Some delegates will attempt to introduce their Local Union's resolutions on the Convention floor.”
Hammer will be attending the convention as a “distinguished guest.”
He said, “Last Friday Governor Granholm told the business elite at their meeting in Mackinac, MI that, ‘in the new Michigan, the UAW will serve the role of being a ‘broker of great skills.’’ This statement, along with the Governor’s enthusiastic support for 3-tiered wage structures, must be repudiated as the anti-union attacks that they are. Before long, Michigan politicians will re-introduce legislation to make this a “Right-to-Work” (for less) state. Our Union and the delegates must respond: ‘We will not be ‘brokers,’ and we will not be broken.’ The delegates will have to speak up, if the leadership doesn’t. Either way, our Union has to chart a new course.”
The rallies are endorsed by the online rank-and-file groups Factory Rat and Warriors of Labor and by the Retiree Chapters of UAW Locals 160 and 412.
For more information contact Wendy Thompson or Frank Hammer:
Frank Hammer, 313-863-3219; fkhammer@ameritech.net
Wendy Thompson, 313-215-7672 Wthomp4490@aol.com.
The leaflet for the rallies is attached.
