VIDEO BY OCCUPY DETROIT
By Diane Bukowski
January 11, 2012
DETROIT – As the state speeds towards a train wreck takeover of Detroit, corporate executives and journalists from all over the world are living it up at the gala North American International Auto Show (NAIAS, in the city that is the birthplace of the auto industry.
Most reporters have said nothing regarding the workers who built the cars that are on glitzy display at the show. They have also ignored the devastation the Big Three automakers have wrought on Detroit over the last four decades. They did not note that profits from events at Cobo Hall like the auto show have been stolen from Detroiters by a regional authority.
Protester demands companies that leave Detroit should pay tax penalties
But the Autoworkers Caravan, including workers from all over Michigan as well as Toledo, Ohio, marched outside the show Jan. 8, loudly demanding jobs at a living wage for all, and a halt to Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s move to install an emergency manager over this historic city.
They chanted, “Wages down, profits high, what do you do? Occupy!” recalling the historic 1937 Flint sit-down strike which led to the formation of the United Auto Workers union, and “The city of Detroit is under attack; what do we do—stand up, fight back!”
Protesters demanded jobs and self-determination for Detroiters
“There has been a whole frontal attack on the working-class,” said Martha Grevatt. She has been a Chrysler autoworker since 1987, first in Ohio, and now at the Warren Stamping Plant outside Detroit.
“Contracts are shoved down our throats,” Grevatt explained. “They are instituting alternative work schedules which are an attack on the eight- hour day. Wages are frozen for the next four years and they are cutting holidays. A shorter work week is needed. In the 30’s, a primary demand of the Flint sit-down strike was a six-hour day, to employ more people. We stand in solidarity with Fiat and Chrysler workers in Italy and Canada, where Sergio Marchionne, CEO of both companies, is demanding that they take the same concessions U.S. workers have. He is threatening to close their plants and move them to countries like Serbia—global whipsawing.”
(See VOD article—http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/12/13/italys-unions-on-strike-against-austerity-measures/.)
The Big Three used whipsawing to drastically downsize Detroit by shutting down its main economic base, the auto plants, since 1970, and moving them to non-unionized areas of the U.S. and overseas.
Historic Dodge Main plant, home of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM)
“In 1960 there were 35 major auto plants in and around the Motor City—including such well-known operations as the Ford Rouge complex, GM’s Cadillac plant and Dodge Main—employing well over 110,000 workers,” a research paper from the World Socialist Website (WSWS.org) says. “Today, there are 14, employing less than 22,000 workers, including many earning half the traditional wages—$14 or even $12 an hour, compared to $28. All told, the restructuring of the auto industry has led to a 70 percent drop in Michigan’s auto-related employment since 1989.”
Thomas Sugrue, author of “The Origins of the Urban Crisis,” wrote, “The downsizing and shutdown of central city factories devastated urban neighborhoods. . . Cities like Detroit struggled to recoup the tax revenues that they lost when companies closed their doors. The loss of property taxes, wage taxes, and population was devastating, particularly as urban governments faced the costs of providing education and social services to an increasingly impoverished population.”
Sugrue noted particularly that the corporate downsizing affected Black autoworkers far out of proportion to their total employment in the auto industry.
Big 3 wanted to destroy increasing militancy of Detroit autoworkers, particularly Black workers, by moving plants out of the metro region
Fast forward to today. Despite financial crises which led GM and Chrysler to file for bankruptcy and obtain multi-billion federal taxpayer bail-outs in 2009, all of the Big Three reported significant revenues and profits for 2011.
GM’s financial advisor, Evercore Partners, predicted that the company will reach a profit of $3 billion in 2011 before taxes, rising to $7.8 billion in 2014.
Chrysler, headquartered in Auburn Hills, reported a jump of 19 percent in revenues for the third quarter of 2011, increasing to $13.1 billion. After Italian automaker Fiat took Chrysler over, CEO Sergio Marchionne said that he expected revenues for both entities to rise to $141 billion by 2014.
Protester George Windau is interviewed, demanding end to corporate bail-outs
Ford reported total earnings of $6.6 billion as of 2011’s third quarter. Total revenue at that point had increased 14 percent from the same period in 2010 to $33.1 billion.
While the corporate CEO’s get fat, there are three parties on the losing end.
They include the U.S. government, which has said it will have to write off $19.7 billion of the 60.7 percent stake it purchased in GM. The UAW health care trust will lose $3 billion on its investment in the company.
But the biggest losers are the workers themselves. Workers at the Jan. 8 protest were furious about the contracts negotiated by the UAW with all three autoworkers last fall, saying they have not seen any benefit from the automakers’ increased profits.
Dean Parm is a committeeman at the GM Saginaw Steering plant, UAW Local 699, who has worked for the company for 29 years. “
Dean Parm, committeeman at Saginaw Steering Plant
The two tier wage system they negotiated in 2006 is bottoming out at $12 an hour for new hires, with no benefits,” he said. “One hundred ninety-three people at the plant don’t have holiday pay, and as a committeeman, I have to explain to them the reason why. Our plant chairman is riding with the company. He signed a memorandum of understanding with them providing for this, which deepens the concessions in the main contract. We’ve put in grievances and are going through the appellate process. But both the company and the top union officials have a hidden agenda involving a multiple-tier wage system, a race to the bottom.”
Don Kemp, a worker at the Flint Truck and Bus plant, UAW Local 598, carried a sign protesting the multi-tiered wage system.
“The auto companies are making record profits, but the union is giving away our rights,” Kemp said. “Our wages have been stagnant for five years, and we didn’t get any increases this time. Our COLA went into the health care program run by the union, which is now underfunded.”
Autoworkers Don and Stacy Kemp
His wife Stacy Kemp, also an autoworker, carried a sign displaying photos of the families of her co-workers.
““These are not just business decisions, these are real people,” she said. “We negotiated our contracts in good faith, but the leadership has no trouble re-opening them every time you turn around.”
George Windau, a worker at Chrysler’s Toledo Jeep plant, UAW Local 12, said his co-workers call the Chrysler-Fiat CEO “Benito Marchionne.” He said UAW President Bob King and the international executive board pulled an emergency manager move on the workers to get the contract approved.
“We are appealing the contract because it was not ratified,” Windau said. “The skilled trades voted it down corporate-wide, but Bob King and the national executive board had a five-minute meeting and overrode the vote. To show how they are collaborating with management, I was brought into labor relations [representing management] at the plant and told that I should withdraw the appeal.”
Karen Hammer is the wife of Frank Hammer, a UAW retiree who worked for 32 years.
“Retirees are losing eye care and dental coverage in the new contract,” she said. “Now we’re paying taxes on our pensions. Foreclosures are increasing because we can’t afford to pay our mortgages.”
She said the UAW must play a role in stopping the state’s attack on Detroit.
“The UAW should join the drive to collect petition signatures to repeal Public Act 4.” Hammer said. “They need to mobilize actions in Lansing against the welfare cut-offs. After all, most of those cut off used to be in the workforce. Most people in Detroit cannot afford to buy cars, and public transportation is being decimated. Michigan cities are not getting revenue-sharing, but the state has a $1 billion budget surplus. They won’t put money into education, which is totally under attack.The Detroit Public Schools have had emergency managers for nine of the last 11 years. The UAW must mobilize to stop this right-wing dictatorship.”
To read Autoworkers Caravan flier for this protest, click on Auto show flier.
Occupy Detroit members joined protest at auto show Jan. 8
When you vote in corrupt politicians who play the racial dived game and take off the top what do you think is going to happen? Why would any business ever move to Detroit? To face unskilled entitled neverending demands? You killed the crops, you dug up the field now you want someone else to fix it, it isn’t fair. Nope, now you will reap what you have sown. Enjoy the Black undertow.