Kalamazoo, MI – This city has been the scene of another attack on working people.

On Jan. 26, the 429 members of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union – PACE – voted to ratify the contract offered to them by the Graphic Packaging Corporation. Back in July 2002, the workers rejected the same contract. When they voted it down, the bosses escorted the unionized workers off the premises. They brought in scabs, in an effort to starve the workers into submission.

What was so terrible about the company’s contract demands? According to Bill Gibbons, a vice president of PACE, “Workers are being punished by Coors,” because “they rejected demands to work up to 16 hours a day, seven days a week, all days off and every holiday except Christmas.” This is dangerous work. During the lockout, a replacement worker was killed on a conveyer belt when a 2,000-pound bale fell on him.

The workers went back to work, but it was hardly a victory. “No one is pleased with the contract,” said Gibbons.

Solidarity From Other Workers

The PACE workers received support from around the country, as the International organized a boycott of Coors and spread the word about their lockout. In Kalamazoo, there was an outpouring of sympathy for them.

A big source of aid was a rank-and-file workers’ organization called Uniting All Workers-Concern. UAW-Concern was formed eight years earlier in a fight to stop General Motors from taking jobs from the Kalamazoo area.

Their efforts including picketing, raising money and food for the strikers, getting the mayor of Kalamazoo to make an appearance in support of the strikers and getting the Students Against Sweatshops involved with picketing.

Weakness of AFL-CIO Leadership

Pat Meyers of UAW-Concern said that the outcome could have been different if unions were organized for fighting management. “President John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO refused to take the boycott of Coors into a nationwide boycott. The PACE workers stuck together, but the AFL-CIO didn’t want to really fight the company.”

Meyers saw firsthand the failures of this ‘business unionism’ in the United Auto Workers collusion with General Motors, and now sees it again in the AFL-CIO’s handling of the GPC lockout. “We could have hope if the unions didn’t become company unions,” she said. “The rank and file are fine, but we need to take back the leadership of the unions.” Referring to her experience with the UAW, she said, “The union failed their members.”

Meyers isn’t just whining, she’s organizing. UAW-Concern helps build the fight against the bosses, and also struggles with the trade union bureaucrats to fight management as well. For example, UAW-Concern called 25 PACE locals trying to get them to put pressure on AFL-CIO President John Sweeney to call a national boycott against Coors.

To continue the struggle to put the unions in this country on a class struggle basis, Meyers reports they have incorporated as a new formation, the American Workers Advocacy Group. “Our vision is to give a voice to all American workers and to bring about long-term changes in the labor movement,” says Meyers.

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