Rehired workers join picket lines

During the fifth week of the American Axle strike, company President Dick Dauch escalated tensions in an attempt to crush the strike. But striking workers and their allies are courageously fighting back as the strike enters its sixth week.

About 3,600 workers at five American Axle plants in Michigan and New York have been on strike since Feb. 26, based on an unfair labor practice. The UAW says the company refuses to open its books. American Axle wants to cut the workers’ pay in half, eliminate pensions and gut benefits—despite the fact that the company made $37 million in profits in 2007. Dauch himself made $10.2 million last year while the workers make on average about $45,000-$50,000 before taxes.

A total of 30 GM factories, including a transmission plant in Ohio that closed March 31, have been fully or partly shut down, with more than 40,000 workers now on layoff. About 80 percent of American Axle’s products are sold to GM.

If American Axle gets its way it will be a mighty blow to the working class generally. This strike is a class-wide battle which all workers and their allies have a stake in.

In the March 27 edition of the Detroit Free Press, Dauch said: “We have the flexibility to source all of our business to other locations around the world, and we have the right to do so. ... If we cannot compete for new contracts in the U.S., there will be no work in the original plants.”

American Axle then announced that it was recalling more than 400 laid-off workers at the five plants on strike in Detroit, Hamtramck and Three Rivers, Mich., as well as in Tonawanda and Cheektowaga, N.Y. These workers were told to report for work March 30.

In a blatant attempt to demoralize, bludgeon and starve the workers into submission, American Axle was forcing these workers to risk losing unemployment benefits. But it failed miserably as the workers organized to fight back.

On March 30, the workers, with union reps, walked in, reported for work and walked right back out to the picket lines, where most had been anyway since the strike began. They were welcomed to the multinational picket lines with rousing chants and applause, then went to register for their $200-a-week strike benefits at their respective union halls.

“This is solidarity and it’s empowering. It’s important that the union stay strong,” declared Mario Bynum, a UAW Local 262 member, while joining the picket lines at the Hamtramck plant. He had just marched from his union hall with the local’s leadership and about 60 laid-off workers. A contingent from Local 235 included about 70 laid-off workers and the local’s leadership.

“This is touching. All of our union sisters and brothers working together,” said Harry Jemkort of Local 262 as he joined the picket line.

On March 29 the company ran ads in newspapers and online soliciting scabs in Detroit, Three Rivers and Buffalo. The ad read in part, “Employment offered to applicants responding to this advertisement will be to fill anticipated attrition replacement openings after negotiations or in place of employees involved in this strike.”

This effort to criminally take the jobs that belong to the strikers, their loved ones and the communities was also met by resistance from the ranks. Early on March 30 picket lines began to swell, as the striking workers and their allies attempted to stop cars from coming into the plant.

Management scabs are now operating various machines and trucks are entering and exiting the plant. A significant amount of management in the auto industry, including at parts suppliers like American Axle, are former UAW members, many still receiving a pension from the union.

During the past few weeks, a couple of trucks have hit strikers upon exiting the plant but no truckers have been arrested for this crime, although the strikers are often harassed by the cops.

Cars with Ontario plates are coming into the plant as well. Are management scabs now coming in from GM plants elsewhere to engage in production?

What’s the possibility of the UAW transporting the more than 40,000 workers now unemployed due to the bosses’ greed, and tens of thousands more at other workplaces to Detroit, to surround the plant and enact a “nothing moves” policy? What about uniting this mighty force with labor-community-student organizations? Can solidarity committees—built and led by the rank and file—build a coalition to swiftly win the strike?

The Coalition for Economic Justice in Buffalo helped organize a solidarity “walk with the strikers” action in Cheektowaga, N.Y., March 29. Machinists at the struck plants outside Buffalo have refused to cross the picket line as well.

The strikers have wide labor-student-community support that grows daily. In Michigan, after the Graduate Employee Organization at the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor’s successful walkout March 25, the union had leftover provisions which they donated to Local 235.

UAW locals and other unions throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe and beyond are passing resolutions and sending provisions to the striking workers. The Socialist Metalworkers Federation of Belgium and the Socialist White Collar Trade Union of the GM Belgium plant in Antwerp sent a solidarity message to the strikers on March 25.

On April 18 a demonstration at Hart Plaza in Detroit, sponsored by the UAW, will build support for the striking workers. For more information: 313-926-5312 or www.uawaam.org.

Send donations and support resolutions to UAW Local 235, 2140 Holbrook Ave., Hamtramck, MI 48212; 313-871-1190; [email protected] or [email protected].