IN THE SPIRIT OF DR. KING
Milwaukee steel workers protest plant shutdown
By Bryan G. Pfeifer
Milwaukee
On Jan. 21, the federal holiday to honor Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr., the remaining members of Smith Steel Workers Local
19806 and their allies marched on the Tower Automotive plant
where they labor. They protested a threatened plant shutdown by
Tower bosses. The Steel Workers combined their current struggle
with the onslaught of job losses their working-class sisters
and brothers have endured.
Gone: 100,000 living-wage jobs in the last decade. On paper
this figure can never describe the devastation that the working
class and oppressed in the Milwaukee metropolitan area have
suffered.
"19806 is not dead. We are going to stand, we are going to
fight, we are going to unite. We can come together to send a
message to this city, state and country that people can stand
together," said Earl Ingram, a 19806 member who has worked at
Tower for almost 30 years.
Tower, which bought out A.O. Smith's steel automobile frame
division in the early 1990s, is but one example of the decline
of manufacturing here in what was once an industrial
epicenter.
At its peak in the early 1970s, A.O. Smith employed more
than 6,000 workers in plants that operated on eight city
blocks. Parking lots, lunchrooms, local establishments and the
union hall were bustling with activity.
Many of these workers were African American men who had
migrated from the South in search of better wages and benefits.
A significant number were also the sons or grandsons of
previous migrants.
Today, 750 workers remain, working in a few buildings.
Barren parking lots and abandoned buildings are now the
reality. Former Steel Workers, many with decades of seniority,
now work at non-union service-oriented jobs, often at less than
half what they made at Tower or A.O. Smith.
Despite countless union concessions and givebacks, and
millions in tax breaks from the city and state, the Tower
bosses have continued their union-busting tactics, most notably
and ironically by using relocation to non-union or low-wage
areas in the South. As a result, families and communities have
been shattered. Their ultimate goal is to close the Tower plant
for good.
But as the Jan. 21 rally clearly illustrated, the remaining
Steel Workers aren't going down without a militant fight.
The list of plant shutdowns, relocations and massive layoffs
here is long. Familiar names like Allen Bradley, Briggs &
Stratton, Master Lock and Steel Tech are flanked by hundreds of
smaller companies that have been wiped out by the loss of tens
of thousands of living-wage union jobs.
On the same day as the Steel Workers' rally, the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel's Business Section published an article
entitled, "Wisconsin's unions suffer worst decline in nation."
According to new data by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,
the unionized work force continued its steady decline in 2001.
A few of its findings were:
* 16.2 percent of the state's work force was unionized in
2001, down from 17.6 percent in 2000--the biggest percentage
point drop in the country;
* there were 35,000 fewer union workers in 2001, a 7.8
percent decrease from 2000;
* the state dropped to 15th-largest in percentage of
unionized workers, down from 10th in 2000;
* the four-county Milwaukee area had almost 6,000 fewer
factory jobs in November than last January.
The Milwaukee-based labor and community organization A Job
is a Right Campaign issued a solidarity statement for the Steel
Workers' rally that honored Dr. King's unshakable support for
working people.
Stressing that he was assassinated while supporting striking
sanitation workers in Memphis on April 4, 1968, the statement
expressed the belief that if Dr. King were alive he would be
supporting the Steel Workers and all those who have lost their
jobs. He would be helping organize the unorganized, like W-2
recipients formerly on public assistance and now forced to work
at substandard wages. He would be opposing the racist war that
the U.S. is waging all over the globe.
The statement concluded, "It becomes clear in listening and
reading to Dr. King's speeches that he lived and died by the
famous labor slogan, 'An injury to one is an injury to all.'
Today, as we support the Smith steelworkers, let it be known
that we, like Dr. King, believe that we are not free until all
working and oppressed people are free."
Reprinted from the Jan. 31, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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