UAW Workers Prepare to Strike as Contract Deadline Approaches; Entire Labor Movement Must Prepare to Mobilize in Support!

(Reprinted from a posting by the Labor Fightback Network)

At this writing, the UAW is preparing actively for a strike that could begin at 11:59 pm on September 14.

At a press conference on September 11, newly elected UAW President Shawn Fain stated that the Big 3 automakers have raked in $250 billion in profits over the past decade, prompting the demand that “record profits should equal record contracts.”

 Contract talks are going down to the wire with the two sides far apart. 

The UAW is demanding that the Big 3 increase wages by 46% over four years; eliminate two-tier pay and benefits; win back the cost-of-living allowance; establish a 32-hour workweek with no cut in pay; restore the defined-benefit pension and the retiree health insurance; increase pensions for retirees; ensure job security for workers when plants are shut down (because of the transition to Electric Vehicles and the export of these jobs to Mexico); and make all current temps permanent employees.

The auto bosses countered with an offer to raise wages by 10% to 15%, with a one-time lump-sum 6% payment. They rejected all the other union demands. The auto magnates argue that the huge profits accrued over the past decade have to be put aside to fund the transition to Electric Vehicles.

With great reason, the UAW leaders are increasingly worried that the EV transition will be used by the employers to eliminate jobs and lower wages and benefits in the new plants. The automakers’ real concern is maximizing their profits. 

[While gasoline-powered vehicles typically use about 30,000 components, EVs require about half of that. For starters, there are over 200 moving parts in a gas engine, whereas an EV only has 18.]

Fain referred to the bosses’ proposals as “shameful and insulting” and “deeply inadequate.”

Ranks Are Ready to Strike!

The UAW ranks are prepared to strike and ready to go. Scott Houldieson, a Ford UAW Local 551 member in Chicago and chair of the reform caucus Unite All Workers for Democracy (UAWD), stated, “The public understands that workers have gotten the shaft while keeping our economy humming along for Wall Street. It’s long past time that Main Street got their fair share!”

Lynda Jackson, recording secretary of UAW Local 7, said. “I’ve never seen so many people engaged and excited, and just ready to show the world what we deserve.”

The business press is demanding loudly that Biden intervene to avert a strike, as he did with the rail workers late last year. Biden has stated publiclythat there will be no Big 3 strike … but this time it might not be so easy for Biden to prevent a strike. 

Shawn Fain was elected for the first time in UAW history by one person one vote. Although Fain won his election by a small margin, his support among the rank and file is growing in response to his class-conscious, combative style.

In addition, the UAW is one of the few unions that has withheld its early endorsement of Biden. Having said that, Fain is seeking support from Biden for the UAW as part of the government’s intervention in subsidizing the auto companies’ transition to EVs.

You can be sure that the auto barons and their capitalist cronies, who fear that a protracted strike could seriously impact their bottom lines, will be tightening the squeeze on Biden.

Mass Mobilizations Needed to Support the Auto Workers

If the auto workers go on strike, as expected, their courageous action must be supported actively by the entire labor movement. This is a showdown and a direct challenge to Biden’s much heralded reputation as the “best friend that labor ever had.”

Sympathy strikes, massive and widespread, could be considered. A Solidarity Day 3 march and rally in Washington, DC could be organized. Picketlines at Big 3 dealerships and headquarters could be organized. Campus rallies and sit-ins could be held. The UAW picketlines will also need material support.

This is not just one more important strike. Labor analysts tell us that millions of jobs will be lost because of Artificial Intelligence (AI), of which EV is an off-shoot. 

This is largely a strike against AI as an instrument by the bosses to maximize their profits on the backs of working people when, if freed from the capitalists’ dictates. AI could be placed at the service of improving the working and living conditions of millions of people the world over. 

This is a PATCO-type moment. A successful UAW auto workers’ strike will go a long way to reverse the massive austerity restructuring forced on the union during the Obama/Biden 2009 bailout of the domestic auto companies after the Wall Street financial crisis.

The time to mobilize in our own name as a working class is now. The labor movement — beginning with the AFL-CIO – can and must meet the challenge. Every working person has a stake in ensuring a victory for the UAW. 

• * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

What is Cop City and Why We Should Fight It

Excerpt from Statement from Win Without War

Atlanta activists and organizers have been working to stop a $90-million testament to militarized policing, resource misallocation, and now, voter suppression. If completed, “Cop City” would destroy huge swaths of the Weelaunee Forest to build a militarized training center, complete with a fake city where police can practice urban warfare. 

Atlantans have pushed back. Together with organizations including the Movement for Black Lives, Southerners on New Ground, and the American Friends Service Committee, they have launched a bold ballot referendum campaign to ensure the community decides the fate of Cop City. 

But now, to silence that opposition, the Atlanta City Council is resorting to Jim Crow-era tactics to invalidate the coalition’s 104,000+ petition signatures that would put Cop City on the ballot. To do it, the City Council plans to use “signature matching” — a biased voter verification method long criticized for its inaccuracies and blatant racial discrimination. …

Three summers ago, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, we saw a groundswell of protests from across the country demanding racial justice and accountability for violent policing. 

In Atlanta, those calls have only increased in the face of Cop City — particularly after police shot Manuel Teran, an activist commonly known as “Tortuguita”, 57 times while they sat with raised arms. Countless other individuals have been charged with domestic terrorism for protesting the development.

The type of raid that led to Tortuguita’s death will only become more commonplace should training facilities like Cop City exist.This facility’s sole purpose is to train police to think like soldiers in war and to treat our streets like battlegrounds. 

And it’s not just Atlantans who should be worried. According to the original proposal, 43% of the training at Cop City will be for officers outside of Atlanta, including foreign units like the Israeli Police Force.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

BAP Atlanta SAYS FREE THEM ALL Statement on Cop City Indictments   On September 5th, 2023, Georgia’s Attorney General Chris Carr issued RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) indictments against 61 individuals who they allege to be part of a “criminal” conspiracy related to the Stop Cop City Movement.  Many of those indicted face concurring charges related to domestic terrorism or money laundering.   At the core, these charges are both fraudulent and tyrannical. In the indictment, these charges were indicated as beginning on May 25, 2020 – the day George Floyd was murdered. How can that be anything but a warning shot to not only local Atlantans, but to everybody across the country fighting against police and state terror. Our history tells us that the State, when threatened, will drop all pretense of “rule of law” in order to crush resistance. Our current moment tells us this.  Compared to two years ago, the Stop Cop City Movement has spread far and wide into a burgeoning popular mass movement, no longer confined to the city limits of Atlanta, and our fire is getting bigger and they are doing everything to snuff it out! We must be vigilant if we are to stand against these tried-and-true methods of oppressions. We must be determined in freeing all of the political prisoners created from this struggle. And we won’t let anyone off the hook.  Reports are saying that the same grand jury used to indict Donald Trump was also used to indict these activists. While we are not distracted by the Trump Trials, this context must be investigated. Therefore one must ask what level of collusion was there between Fani Willis, the Fulton County DA, State AG Carr, and of course the City of Atlanta? Grand juries are selected by prosecutors to virtually guarantee indictments. This must mean the Fulton County DA and State AG agreed to use the same group of people to rubber stamp both the Trump indictments (indicted under the same Georgia RICO statute) and these Cop City indictments.   We will not be distracted from what’s happening in front of our eyes. It wasn’t just the Georgia State Patrol who carried out the extrajudicial murder of Manuel “Tortuguita” Teran in the Weelaunee Forest this past January, a murder they continue to cover up in these very indictments! And we can’t forget the City of Atlanta with Mayor Andre Dickens at the helm, spending the better part of his summer trying to sink a constitutional and legal referendum against Cop City with bogus legal challenges, leveraging some of the same legal tactics he slams his Republican opponents for! The soldiers of the pan-European, patriarchal white supremacist system are in a United Front against Us, the People. It is imperative now more than ever that we strengthen our United Front against them.      BAP Atlanta demands that all charges against Stop Cop City protestors are dropped, BAP Atlanta demands that the Mayor Andre Dickens resign and the City of Atlanta cancel the Cop City lease, BAP Atlanta demands that all political prisoners incarcerated in the state of Georgia be pardoned and released. FREE THEM ALL!   No Compromise, No Retreat! BAP-Atlanta   bapatl@blackallianceforpeace.com Link to online version: https://blackallianceforpeace.com/bapstatements/copcityindictments

BAP Atlanta SAYS FREE THEM ALL Statement on Cop City Indictments  On September 5th, 2023, Georgia’s Attorney General Chris Carr issued RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) indictments against 61 individuals who they allege to be part of a “criminal” conspiracy related to the Stop Cop City Movement.  Many of those indicted face concurring charges related to domestic terrorism or money laundering. At the core, these charges are both fraudulent and tyrannical. In the indictment, these charges were indicated as beginning on May 25, 2020 – the day George Floyd was murdered. How can that be anything but a warning shot to not only local Atlantans, but to everybody across the country fighting against police and state terror. Our history tells us that the State, when threatened, will drop all pretense of “rule of law” in order to crush resistance. Our current moment tells us this. Compared to two years ago, the Stop Cop City Movement has spread far and wide into a burgeoning popular mass movement, no longer confined to the city limits of Atlanta, and our fire is getting bigger and they are doing everything to snuff it out! We must be vigilant if we are to stand against these tried-and-true methods of oppressions. We must be determined in freeing all of the political prisoners created from this struggle. And we won’t let anyone off the hook. Reports are saying that the same grand jury used to indict Donald Trump was also used to indict these activists. While we are not distracted by the Trump Trials, this context must be investigated. Therefore one must ask what level of collusion was there between Fani Willis, the Fulton County DA, State AG Carr, and of course the City of Atlanta? Grand juries are selected by prosecutors to virtually guarantee indictments. This must mean the Fulton County DA and State AG agreed to use the same group of people to rubber stamp both the Trump indictments (indicted under the same Georgia RICO statute) and these Cop City indictments. We will not be distracted from what’s happening in front of our eyes. It wasn’t just the Georgia State Patrol who carried out the extrajudicial murder of Manuel “Tortuguita” Teran in the Weelaunee Forest this past January, a murder they continue to cover up in these very indictments! And we can’t forget the City of Atlanta with Mayor Andre Dickens at the helm, spending the better part of his summer trying to sink a constitutional and legal referendum against Cop City with bogus legal challenges, leveraging some of the same legal tactics he slams his Republican opponents for! The soldiers of the pan-European, patriarchal white supremacist system are in a United Front against Us, the People. It is imperative now more than ever that we strengthen our United Front against them.    BAP Atlanta demands that all charges against Stop Cop City protestors are dropped,  BAP Atlanta demands that the Mayor Andre Dickens resign and the City of Atlanta cancel the Cop City lease,  BAP Atlanta demands that all political prisoners incarcerated in the state of Georgia be pardoned and released. FREE THEM ALL!·                          No Compromise, No Retreat!BAP-Atlanta bapatl@blackallianceforpeace.comLink to online version: https://blackallianceforpeace.com/bapstatements/copcityindictments