This resolution was passed at the 2023 July Membership Meeting.
Whereas Mary Barra’s remarks in the Detroit Free Press (6/9/23) about taking a “problem solving” approach during UAW-GM national negotiations this summer can’t be taken seriously,
Whereas UAW members over the past decade witnessed firsthand and protested on numerous occasions GM’s dismal “problem solving” approach toward its blue-collar workforce at its Colmotores assembly plant in Colombia, Latin America,
Whereas GM fired hundreds of workers there in 2011 who suffered job-related injuries, without compensation,
Whereas the workers formed an injured & fired workers’ association (ASOTRECOL) and protested by erecting a tent in front of the US Embassy to publicize GM’s unsafe conditions and its brutal dismissal of its workers,
Whereas it took GM a year to respond and then only after 8 of the ASOTRECOL members embarked on a 22-day hunger strike,
Whereas GM proposed a “problem solving” approach by submitting to a formal mediation with ASOTRECOL, overseen by the US government’s Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS),
Whereas GM lawyers abruptly left on the 3rd day of the mediation when ASOTRECOL rejected their inadequate “final offer,”
Whereas the mediators publicly urged GM to return to the table to reach agreement with the workers, which GM has refused to do,
Whereas the ASOTRECOL members have continued their strong but peaceful protest at the tent encampment under great duress, now in its 12th year, with widespread solidarity including UAW local unions, UAWD members and labor and human rights activists in the US and overseas,
Therefore, be it resolved that
UAWD urge the UAW IEB, UAW Pres. Shawn Fain and UAW VP Mike Booth to tell CEO Barra that she can demonstrate GM’s commitment to “problem solving” by returning at once to Colombia to complete the negotiations with ASOTRECOL under the auspices of the FMCS or other independent governing body for a just, fair and final settlement.