INDIANAPOLIS, IN October 3 — While UAW President Bob King was addressing the mass “rally for jobs and justice” in Washington, D.C. yesterday, he forgot to mention the ongoing struggle here by GM workers in UAW Local 23, who refuse to knuckle under to King and the UAW leadership, GM and JD Norman Industries, or the Governor of Indiana. On September 27 they rejected a tentative agreement between the UAW and GM by a more than 10-1 margin that would have cut their wages so that GM could sell the plant.
Under the Obama bailout and restructuring of GM, this plant will close. JD Norman Industries wants to buy it and turn it into a low-wage GM parts supplier. After workers voted by a similar margin to reject any wage concessions last May, GM and the UAW continued to bargain and tried to pass an agreement in August. But International reps were met by hundreds of workers and literally run out of the union hall. The UAW then scheduled a mail ballot to try to pass the deal. GM allowed International reps into the plant to sell it, and the Governor said if the plant closed because the workers rejected the wage cuts, they would not be allowed to collect unemployment benefits!
The workers responded with a rally against concessions at UAW Region 3 headquarters on September 25, and a “Solidarity Vote,” where 412 members came to the hall and voted “NO” in front of a video camera. Then they videoed taking the ballots to the post office and the mail clerk counting them to record the rejection of the contract.
PLP members visited the plant and distributed hundreds of fliers and CHALLENGES before being chased off by GM security. We talked with some workers at length who expressed tremendous anger at the UAW leadership and thanked us for coming. In a sense, this fight reflects why King & Co. organized the Washington rally in the first place.
Workers have sacrificed billions without a fight, but they have not been won to doing whatever it takes to save U.S. imperialism. So the union leaders are trying to get us focused on the Tea Party and getting out the vote for the Democrats while they slash our wages and destroy 200,000 jobs. Ultimately they have to win us to embrace a future of poverty wages, high racist unemployment, and world war to save their asses. But we are building a revolutionary communist movement that will smash them and their billionaire masters. And we need to win these GM rebels to join us. J