Workers threaten occupation as Caterpillar closes plant

On New Year’s Day, Caterpillar, a Fortune 500 company that made a record $4 billion in profit last year, locked out 481 members of Canadian Auto Workers Local 27. Local 27 represents workers at Electro-Motive Diesel, which Caterpillar’s Progress Rail subsidiary purchased last year after getting big tax subsidies. The union refused to accommodate company demands for pay cuts averaging almost $20 an hour — from $35 an hour to $16.50 an hour. The new wage rate would have been close to what workers make at a newly opened, nonunion locomotive plant in Muncie, Ind.

A Jan. 21 rally drew 15,000 supporters from all over Canada to stand with the workers against “Fat Cat.” Nevertheless, on Feb. 3, Caterpillar announced its decision to close the plant. The work will be moved to the Muncie plant — in the U.S.’s newest “right-to-work” state.

A severance package has not yet been negotiated, but angry CAW members are not going to settle for the minimum payout required by law. “I can tell you, if we had a vote by the membership, the membership would have said, ‘Let's occupy the plant today,’” said CAW President Ken Lewenza. (Postmedia News, Feb. 6)

Local 27 President Tim Carrie concurred: “The mood today is one of resolve in regards to achieving a severance package that recognizes our members, that recognizes the situation they've been put in with regards to this closure, and also that recognizes that Caterpillar has put these workers and their families through hell over the past five weeks.”

The CAW occupied a Caterpillar plant in Brampton, Ontario, in 1991, winning improved severance payments after the plant closing was announced. More recent CAW occupations of auto parts plants have achieved similar results.

Now, according to Carrie, the workers have another factor to their advantage: mass solidarity. The union is “getting calls of support from all over the country recognizing that the approach that Caterpillar is taking is unacceptable.” (Postmedia News, Feb. 6)

Since the New Year’s Day lockout, one of the biggest supporters on the picket line has been Occupy London [Ontario, Canada]. Right away they set up tents outside the picket line. A large delegation marched into Victoria Park for the Jan. 21 rally and from there marched to the picket line after the rally.

The occupation that began on Wall Street has infused the whole working class with a spirit of defiance — witness the victory of longshore workers in Longview, Wash., won through the solidarity of labor and the Occupy movement. No wonder workers in many countries are talking seriously about the tactic of occupying plants. In Cork, Ireland, a sit-down strike of 32 workers at the Vita Cortex foam manufacturing factory has entered its third month.

The effectiveness of the sit-down tactic was proven 75 years ago during the mass wave of workplace occupations in the 1930s. In 1937, a 44-day takeover of General Motors forced the world’s largest auto company to recognize the United Auto Workers. When GM charged the workers with violating property rights, the union countered that they were defending their own property rights — the property rights to their jobs.

Now is the time again — Occupy for jobs!