We live in a competitive culture.
We need to organize a new Solidarity Movement that can win strikes again for The Common Good!
Big Business gets one-half of the working class to destroy the other half. (Jay Gould).
Solidarity Unions stopped that for a time. Solidarity Unions built better lives for everyone at tremendous personal costs for the organizers. And then the 1% decided THEY had given too much and attacked all that Labor had won.
Mills, factories were closed. Our work was shipped to foreign slaves.
A few people protested that this was hate, this was a war on American workers. The domestic war on workers was taken abroad with bombs and bullets, killing 100s of thousands on Innocents who never posed any threat to our country.
The protesters were blown off. It was dogeatdog hate attacking Solidarity everywhere. Millions of Innocents bombed abroad. 140 MILLION Americans impoverished at home. Kaepnernick called our attention to former auto and steelworkers in Gary and Pittsburgh who were brown & black. Dogeatdog hate assigned blacks and browns to ghettos run by drug gangs and 140 MILLION to poverty.
This is hate.
Kids who graduated high school in Chicago were no longer able to walk to a Tool & Die shop or welding shop or steel mill or auto plant for a decent job.
In Austin, MN a Dem Governor put the troops on striking meatpackers, advised to do so by teamster, uaw and afl leaders.
Competitive? Just a nicer word for dogeatdog. Dogeatdog is serious hate. Stop looking around for the source. Hateful, Casino Capitalism is a bitch.
How to win…
We need to get back to basic Union democracy, solidarity and equality!
Let’s have a Local to Local Solidarity campaign Let’s have a worker to worker, Local to Local campaign based in the Common Good of real autoWORKERS AND OUR COMMUNITIES….based in the virtue and principles and rules of the True, Solidarity UAW.
Let’s campaign to end competition and favoritism and reinstate the UNION Democracy and Equality mandates of the True UAW. (See Articles 2 and 19 of the real UAW Constitution).
Let’s have a campaign that reflects the best examples of solidarity at work on our jobs. Let’s have a campaign that shows the importance of what the Local 879 Chassis Gang did to defend our agreements and principles.
Let’s have a campaign that points out the destructiveness of favoritism and the Whipsaw.
Let’s have a campaign that explains and encourages everyone to join the work of a solidarity committee formed by real autoWORKERS that pounds away in discussions, in leaflets, in Rank & File newsletters for Solidarity on the shopfloor. Let’s make sure that the Solidarity Campaigns invite EVERYONE to join us in re-gaining our SOLIDARITY rights promised in the Real UAW’s Constitution.
Let us have a campaign that DETAILS the anti-UAW damage that the Gangster and Fake uaw has imposed on us, and compares this anti-UAW system to the Real UAW Solidarity and stops the dog eat dog, scabbing and whipsawing once and for all.
Let’s all campaign for a Union that helps us organize ourselves on UNION Principles and encourages us to reach out to the best union members in the other Locals to start a movement to save everyone, every community, and wins full employment everywhere.
Let’s have a campaign that puts Real UAW Lineworkers and Tradesfolks, with their Common Sense Solidarity on the road to re-unite all our locals for the Equality, Democracy and Solidarity ordered for all of us by the UAW Constitution.
Elections for uaw office never help much. Most elected reps get their coconuts polished by Forduaw within 30 days. We get arguments for instance about who will be appointed rather than why we need to eliminate appointments and favoritism. We get almost no commitments to organize ourselves……. only “reasons” why we can’t do much of anything UNION all together.
Elections are usually only about who is the lesser evil and who will give away the least. Who can manage corporatism and constant loss better. They are almost never about the most important worker value, Solidarity and direct action to save our work and bodies. In fact, these days these elections have become more about solidarity’s enemy, competition. Whacko, anti-worker, Company People present themselves as the best candidates to manage dogeatdog.
These campaigns avoid the truth about the new, company union uaw, and encourage loyalty, even pride in the gangster uaw and adherence to its confining, discouraging, anti-worker meetings and conventions.
Only bringing the ranks together will make our reps work for us. And the ranks are never going to be united around what the company wants. We are never going to get together as long as jobs are given to favorites and as long as the company is allowed, even encouraged to run our Local. We are never going to rebuild the Solidarity UAW by following the fake and crooked uaw’s orders to cheat others out of their work.
These local elections that come along every three years – 4 years now for the Cons – never solve much. Fakeuaw conventions and councils are ruled by the fake uaw. Suggesting reform there lends credibility to the Gangster, Corporate uaw.
I have yet to see anyone get better in office. This is something to think about while you listen to the bogus “no experience” arguments of some of the dreadfully-experienced candidates. People who say line workers don’t have enough experience to represent us are wrong. What they really mean is that line workers who stand up for their coworkers pose management problems for the dogeatdog, fake uaw.
In the True UAW, reps did not forget what the line is like. In the True UAW, reps never lost their love for the folks who do the work. Fact is, Reps are best when they come off the job. Most of us go downhill from there as the company and international union and their local stooges, grind us down with their dogeatdog and limit our notions of what is possible with Solidarity.
What is really true? The greatest committeeman and friend in my local, Vern Gagner, once put out a leaflet reminding us that – IN A UNION – we are all our Brothers and Sisters Keepers. We should be again!
Union representation only works when the rank and file is together and active around Union principles and the entire Union is democratic. We have been split on these principles at least since the mid-70s when the uaw began to move out of Solidarity trade unionism to company unionism. So we have to make a difference between what Union principles have always been and what are the corporate, competitive, dog eat dog principles of the new uaw. The fake uaw is not a Solidarity Trade Union at all. It is a company, dog eat dog union – and proud of it! Take a look. It’s been easy to see for at least 40 years and the loss of over a MILLION UAW jobs!
Today, the split between us is enormous and very clear. We have members who feel they are entitled to better jobs because of their intelligence, their speaking ability and their embrace of corporatism. We have the Forduaw handing clipboard jobs out everywhere to achieve political power and secure their own positions. We have the fakeuaw assigning jobs, dinners, trips and overtime on a political basis. We have the fakeuaw using at least some of their appointees to attack the most principled, standup True UAW workers we have. In my Local, in the runup to Forduaw closing our plant, you had to have 40 real UAW people with you to get anything UNION passed at our last membership meetings because the reps and their appointees voted for themselves.
How can WE change then?
We still have many members who believe in Union values. These members are willing to defend our agreements and work practices and all the principles of solidarity and democracy. A few of them go out of their way to support workers everywhere in our plant and outside our plant. They do not agree with dog eat dog. They promote friendship, mutual support and fightbacks. They do not agree with FPS, Toyotism, Lean Production and the Lean Society. They get in the Boss’s face. They fight speedup. They understand and respect what autoworkers did 80 years ago for us. They hate favoritism and stand up against it. They believe in all the work rules we fought so hard for because these rules make our work bearable over 30 years.
Very few of these members attend uaw meetings. When they do, they hear about company programs, junkets and the latest appointments. They can hear fake UAW people blaming us for refusing to do overloaded jobs. Blaming us for being injured. Blaming us for rejecting/ridiculing scabbing. They notice the absence of any organizing efforts to defend our work. They are usually out-voted by the favorites, the appointees who have largely taken over our Union Hall.
Our friend Mark Nelson was like this. Mark fought as hard as anyone to protect his job and the jobs everyone around him on the chassis line. Mark was dubbed “The problem” by his former friends on the bargaining committee and they sold him out. We lost mark in January. His grievance appeals to the iuaw remain unanswered. But Mark and his pals on the line never gave up on their friends on the job. They asked for nothing for themselves. They demand their rights and respect for all that we have won. They are the anchors and organizers of our Union today.
Sure, there are some good people wrapped up in FPS. We all make mistakes. They should leave and help us organize.
Mark and many of these great UAW members demanded an end to appointments. We voted at our Union Hall on a motion requiring the local Pres and Chair to fill jobs the same way our contracts mandate that the company fill them. There were a lot of arguments made against that motion that had nothing to do with the values of solidarity and equality. Shameful things were said for favoritism by members who either did not know or do not care about our equality and solidarity victories. Most of our uaw leaders voted against this motion and voted to save favoritism. But we organized for solidarity across our plant floor on all shifts. WE had Real UAW meetings in the plant at lunchtime. We were called colorful names and threatened by our “leaders”. We won anyway. Appointed jobs would be posted for all. Mark Nelson signed a posting and was interviewed in seniority for an appointed job. Which he turned down. “Thanks for asking,” Mark said.
But Opposite our solidarity majority, are Forduaw’s highly paid, highly trained EI/FPS platoons with their giant lie, anti-worker message: “Compete against each other, sellout each other. Scab on each other. Attack other Locals. Sellout the other locals. Sellout everything another generation won for all of us and you will be saved. Our goal should be to meet and beat the competition.”
closed our plant in 2011. Our work went to foreign slaves. It’s been returned now to Local 900. Local 900 was a leader for The Whipsaw and entitlement for the “reps”.
Meet and beat the competition. Save yourselves. Did it work? This is a lie as any Edison and now, St. Paul worker and all plant closing victims should be able to tell us.
How did all this memememe happen?
Because of the ordinary workers’ belief in solidarity and democracy, the company knows it could never install whipsawing, plant closing programs like EI/FPS democratically. They can only launch this sort of anti-Union program through fear, favoritism, appointments and dictate and that is what they did. The company took our iuaw and most Local “reps” and turned their brains to dogeatdog Cream of Wheat and backed them up with appointed sucks.
The Local reps routinely oppose Solidarity at the Bargaining Councils, Conventions and our own Local Union meetings. THEY were our 1stline of defense for fair contracts. And THEY routinely vote to close more plants, maintain poverty wages for the younger generation and steal their pensions. Their work is opposed to everything the UAW fought for and won for all of us – at great personal risk – years and years ago. About the best we can hope for today are some reps who will help us get together. – Reps who would support the energy, commitment and inspiration of Solidarity. Reps like Travis Watkins, Justin Mayhugh, Adrian Slaughter, Kimberly Herbert, Kit Kennedy, and many, many more, who would take the solidarity rights of the True UAW Constitution seriously and inspirationally. Then build a conversation to use these rights, rules and principles to bring our Locals back together for equality. Anyone can be a leader in that. Join The Good Fight FOR the Common Good. Anyone can do that.
Equality was defined by the True UAW’s Constitution. The UAW president was never supposed to make $324,000 a year while assigning $10 wages to our members. Local Chairs were never supposed to make two or three times what the lineworkers make. Members who did the same jobs were never supposed to be paid differently. No one was supposed to make half of what the guys across the line made. Wage tiers, pension obliteration, plant closings are all Anti-UAW. But in case we are slow in supporting the “partners in production” lie, there is the Forduaw constant, fear-mongering message, “Give us what we want or we will close your plant”. And That threat has been backed up by this corrupt uaw.
“Meet and beat the competition”. The truth is, the “competition” is our friends. The “competition” is other uaw members who are being told the same big lie.
Hacks in the uaw like to ask, “When are you going to realize this is not the 1930s?”
No interested Solidarity Unionist would ever mistake today for the 1930s. There were real UNIONs in the 1930s! There are 140 MILLION Americans in poverty today. Who fights for them? In the True UAW there were strikes FOR the unemployed. There were UAW strikes for FULL employment. There was no “middle class” UAW. The real UAW was Working Class and proud of it. But in this fake uaw, they fight the autoworkers who are trying to fight for each other. If you know auto history you know the True UAW was out to change our jobs and the world so everyone would be treated equally. The hacks are right. This is not the 30s. In the 1930s, autoworkers had a democratic, fighting, solidarity UNION that took on the worlds biggest and most vicious corporations and….. kicked their ass…. And made America a better place for working stiffs. Made America a better country for everyone.
How did this big labor treachery happen? Somehow the courage, integrity, and honor of ordinary workers which made the UAW such a great outfit in the beginning, all got sidetracked in recent years to Las Vegas and Palm Springs and Miami Beach where just-pretend union reps frolic with the enemy and whine about the workers. When the shit hit the fan in the 1970s and the corporations attacked the American working class to maximize profits there was one UNION thing to do. And that was organize. Bring our Locals together in Solidarity. Mobilize the membership to extend the Solidarity hand to every American, Canadian, Mexican, every autoworker in the world. That’s what the True UAW would have done.
The solution is the same one UAW organizers pushed in the 1930’s: find the people who believe in Solidarity in the plants and between the plants and between the countries. Unite us all and take the bastards on.
Everything Forduaw does disunites us as a Solidarity force. After 40+ years of pounding away at Solidarity the Forduaw now feels confident enough to try to reassemble us in their crooked image. WE CAN change that! Solidarity works. Stand up and fight for our friends and our jobs! Fight for the real UAW, worker to worker and Local to Local.
Tom Laney, Shop Committeeman, UAW Local 879