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Broad support strengthens American Axle strike
By
Bryan G. Pfeifer
Detroit
Published Apr 24, 2008 11:06 PM
Presently 3,600 workers at American Axle & Manufacturing on strike since
Feb. 26 continue fighting back against an attempted bosses’ onslaught
aimed at all workers internationally, specifically people of color, immigrants
and women.
Strikers and their labor-community allies at
American Axle, April 20
WW photo: Alan Pollock
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Negotiations are taking place, but slowly. AAM has rejected outright two
concessionary proposals from the United Auto Workers International. The
rank-and-file are clear: no concessions.
American Axle wants to cut the workers’ pay in half, eliminate pensions
and gut benefits—although the company made $37 million in profits last
year and CEO Richard Dauch himself was paid $10.2 million. Workers make on
average about $45,000 to $50,000 before taxes.
The week of April 13 a high-profit sports utility vehicle plant in Lansing,
Mich., was idled when GM workers walked out during negotiations over local
contract issues. As of April 22, workers at two other plants in Michigan and
one in Kansas are also close to striking over local contract issues.
Rally canceled, rank & file resist
Discussions among the rank and file of the UAW locals now on strike at AAM are
becoming more militant, particularly in Detroit. There an April 18 mass support
rally for the strikers at AAM, expected to draw thousands from throughout the
Midwest, was canceled by the union International less than 48 hours before it
was to take place.
Besides the massive mobilization by the rank-and-file and their allies
throughout Metro Detroit and beyond for the rally, Local 235 and Local 262 were
receiving solidarity statements for the rally from union locals in the U.S. and
around the world. These included messages from auto and other workers in
Brazil, Canada, China, Australia and India. Some who had been planning to go to
the rally instead went to the picket lines in Hamtramck, Mich.
A fax sent to the UAW Region 1 locals on strike from Region 1 Director Joseph
Peters on April 16 at 12:56 p.m. declared, “UAW Rally in support of
American Axle strikers has been postponed.”
The body of the fax read: “Please be advised that the rally has been
postponed. UAW President Gettlefinger and Vice President Settles believe that
it is in the best interest in the negotiations process to delay the rally at
this time. While these are extremely difficult negotiations, and the outcome is
uncertain, some progress has been made and we are hopeful movement will
continue.”
A similar one-paragraph announcement is posted on the UAW International’s
Web site.
The rank-and-file’s livid response to this capitulation to AAM continues
unabated, augmented when, on April 21, Gettelfinger announced that there really
wasn’t any progress after all. This of course left the strikers and their
allies asking many questions as to why the rally was really canceled. A massive
boost of power from outside the bargaining room was direly neeed and could be
the decisive factor in this epic struggle.
The rally cancellation added to the anger of strikers, who had not received any
strike bulletins or virtually any other information from the International
about the status of negotiations since the beginning of the strike.
Adolphus Heahth, a Black worker from Local 235, began working for GM in 1977
and has been working at American Axle since 1994. Heahth captured the sentiment
of the rank-and-file when he said the April 18 rally shouldn’t have been
cancelled.
“We need a rally big time to change the way people think,” Heahth
told Workers World.
He added: “It’s a class war. We need to be striking nationally. If
we go down the tubes here it’s going to be rough nationally. We need to
get organized.”
This type of resistance and anger from the rank-and-file forced the leadership
to agree to a rally and march for April 24 beginning at 1 p.m. Strikers and
their allies will march from Local 235 in Hamtramck to AAM headquarters a few
blocks away to protest at the company’s stockholders’ meeting.
Like Heahth, most of the strikers hope that the march won’t stop at the
AAM headquarters; they insist the rank-and-file should go into the communities
to make alliances and build coalitions.
“There are some things we can do,” said Heahth, who is talking with
fellow strikers in an effort to build creative fight-back actions to win the
strike and broaden the working-class struggle. Some suggestions he had were to
rally and march on a designated day every week or every day with strikers and
their loved ones at the plants in Hamtramck and to bring in the over 40,000
strikers on layoff or strike at GM and other auto plants and suppliers.
Heahth said labor-community solidarity committees, led and built from the
rank-and-file, could be a catalyst for the strikers and the larger community
and could be used to put serious pressure not only on AAM but also on those
within the UAW intent on selling a concessionary contract to the
rank-and-file.
‘When you win, we all win!’
Internationalist solidarity for the strikers keeps rolling.
“Every time the company gains more profits, they insist on taking away
our rights. We completely support your struggle at American Axle, and we know
that when you win a victory, it will be ours also. We will do everything
possible to share the struggle at American Axle with others in Brasil in order
to increase solidarity with your struggle,” read the statement from GM
workers from a plant in São Jose dos Campos in Brazil, where the company
is also trying to slash new workers’ wages by 50 percent.
International Association of Machinists (IAM) members at the five struck AAM
plants continue to refuse to cross the picket lines, foregoing pay.
They’ve had to wait seven weeks to get unemployment.
A rally in Three Rivers, Mich., on April 17, sponsored by UAW Local 2093, drew
hundreds of labor-community-student supporters.
And, as they have since the first day of the strike, donations, provisions and
support resolutions continue to pour into the locals.
On April 20 Ed Childs, a chief steward for UNITE HERE Local 26 in Boston,
joined the picket lines, visited the Local 235 union hall and met with Bill
Alford Jr., Local 235, vice president. Childs was in Detroit as a keynote
speaker for a Workers World Party Irish forum and while in town for the weekend
spoke at a moratorium coalition meeting and visited the Gaelic League.
“You can’t come to Detroit without being on the American Axle
picket line. It’s a tremendous experience just to be near these huge
plants and these historic workers who are picketing,” said Childs.
Asked about the rally cancellation, Childs said, “The cancellation was a
mistake. You always should be at the table with as much strength as you
possibly can and do whatever you can to strengthen your side. It’s the
whole class question of negotiations: they negotiate with strength and you
negotiate with strength. It doesn’t matter if it’s a union struggle
or it’s a national liberation struggle. The Vietnamese showed us that.
They came to the table with strength and the U.S. tried to bomb them with
strength. The Irish did the same thing. In the history of the union movement
it’s always been those who have strength that get the best deals at the
table. What does strength mean? Strength means that you get out as widely as
possible the strength that you have.”
Childs said his message to labor-community-student organizations after
participating on the picket lines was: “Learn from history. Learn from
struggles around the world.”
He added: “There was one thing that one of the white workers had an
understanding of and that’s that in Detroit with not only the strikes
going on, the foreclosures and other economic things hitting the workers, that
he was looking for another rebellion to break out in Detroit like it did in the
1960s. And that now he was looking forward to it as an ally in the working
class struggle. And that’s analysis that the movement has to take, the
leadership has to take and the ranks have to take. It’s not only to look
for it but to build it and help support it. That’s what’s going to
win this working class struggle.”
Send donations and support resolutions to UAW Local 235, 2140 Holbrook
Ave., Hamtramck, MI 48212; 313-871-1190; [email protected] or
[email protected]. For more information, www.uawaam.org.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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