Aurora, CO – Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) members from Denver, Colorado joined the UAW picket line, October 13, at the General Motors (GM) distribution facility in Aurora. That facility is part of the national strike of General Motors where workers are seeking to improved pay, to maintain high quality health care and to provide a path for temporary workers to become permanent workers.

GM has used multiple wage and benefit tiers, including ‘temporary’ workers, to slash wages and divide the workforce. It is reported that over 46,000 UAW members are out on strike all over the country since the GM strike started on September 16.

There are 48 union UAW employees at the GM warehouse in Aurora; they are all on strike and on the picket lines. These 48 workers manage to picket the warehouse 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Morale is high, as there is much solidarity from other unions and from the community at large. The Teamsters at UPS are not crossing UAW picket lines in Aurora, and it is reported that a large section of the local UPS warehouse is full of GM parts that are not being distributed.

Nicole Adams, a UAW member of Local 431, said she was confident of a victory in the strike and stated, “We are tired of lifting up these companies and they promise us this, and they promise us that, and they make money off of our backs.”

Fight Back! was distributed on the picket line and well received by the strikers. The FRSO members pledged to return to the picket line and to continue to act in solidarity with the Aurora GM workers.

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Wyoming, MI – On day 20 of their strike, workers waved “UAW on strike!” signs as they walked back and forth, October 5. Six groups of determined United Auto Workers of Local 167 stood outside and blocked entrances at the enormous General Motors (GM) plant in Wyoming, a working-class Michigan town. A total of 46,000 union strikers are out 24 hours a day, seven days a week, across the United States. GM is losing millions of dollars while negotiations with the UAW continue.

Every few minutes, men and women passing by in cars and pickup trucks honked and yelled out their windows in solidarity. One UAW picketer said, “People flash their lights at night, instead of honking, so as not to wake the neighbors.” At one point a group of 25 motorcyclists roared past at funeral speed, fists raised in the air.

This West Michigan GM plant makes lifters, cam phasers, and axles for light duty trucks. In days gone by it employed over 3000. Today there are 700 to 800 workers on three shifts.

“The members out walking the picket line are in high spirits,” said Scott Poole, a UAW member who works in the plant. “Members from other UAW locals are coming down to support us. A group of four UAW retirees from Flint were here to walk the line in solidarity.”

The big issues for union members on the picket lines are health care costs going up and the fact that most temporary workers are now past three years of employment. Temps make about half the pay of full-timers. Temporary workers now comprise 7% of the GM workforce.

Negotiations are ongoing, with pay increases, pay progression for temporary workers, and pensions reportedly being haggled over. With GM making record profits in four recent years – a net income of $27.5 billion – workers are expecting to do far better than the past two UAW contracts.

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Lansing, Michigan – The United Auto Workers (UAW) called a strike on Sunday, September 15. Fight Back! interviewed Jean “Johnny Bravo” Duchemin, an alternate committee member in UAW Local 1753 in Lansing, Michigan about the GM strike.

Fight Back!: How do you see the strike fitting into the broader labor movement and the current political climate?

Jean “Johnny Bravo” Duchemin: That one, I had to take time to think about that one. When it comes to the political climate and the labor movement, the labor movement in this country has been died out. A lot of people are uneducated. So, since the last major strike, and the last major movement, it’s been stagnant. Stagnated. So you have a whole generation of 30 years that hasn’t been educated on unions or any other kind of labor force movement. So they are unaware of the importance of the union, so now in today’s political climate it is extremely important, I feel, because... Let me think for a second. I don’t want to give a wrong answer here. So in today’s world we are under severe attack. We have the Right to Work law, which absolutely makes no sense, it just doesn’t make sense. Everyone has the right to work, but they don’t deserve union representation without paying for it. So laws like that, those are straight up union busting, and we’re under attack with these politicians. And so today our movement I believe is super important because it will, if we become victorious over this, I believe that other unions will fall in and stand up instead of accepting what the corporations offer them. That’s the word on the street that you hear. Because we get a lot of people yelling at us every day, “Just be grateful for what they give you,” “Just be grateful for the paycheck.” They don’t really understand the “why” we’re going on strike, why a movement like this is important.

Fight Back!: How many workers is this affecting?

Duchemin: GM employees [are] 49,800 and change, but on top of that 49,000 you have all the other plants actually feed parts, and then you have Canada and Mexico. The plants can’t function without us. So this is actually affecting more than half a million people currently, and now if we stay on strike for another two weeks then we’re looking at maybe 2.5 million people being affected by this. GM right now is leading, it’s leading this.

A lot of people have been accepting lower wages and, you’ve seen it, you got your corporation’s CEOs getting 300-350 times more than the current employee, but the employee doesn’t know that they can actually negotiate and get more money, and then we can burn down that big gap in the middle. So our job as unions, as union members and union representatives, is to agitate, educate and get the community to participate, that’s the main three roles of any union member.

Throughout the past two years I’ve been trying my best to educate everybody, get them prepared for something like this, and they just think you’re crazy ‘cause again we’re in a generation that is uneducated about this and the media’s been raising everybody so they have mixed views. But now they can honestly see that the company gives you nothing. Nothing. Everything that a union has, has been negotiated. The wages, every single entitlement we have, GM gave us none of that. It all has been negotiated. So I feel that when this is said and done, and we all go back to work, at least the UAW will be stronger. And Ford and Chrysler, they’re going to follow suit. But hopefully, other unions outside the auto industry pay attention and stand up.

I try to tell my plant all the time when they say, “The union ain’t fighting for us, the union’s not doing this,” I have to really insist that they themselves are the union. The leaders are elected, they can be unelected, but you guys are the union, and when you all come in numbers you can actually change who’s in the leadership, and you can actually change policies.

Fight Back!: In general what do you hope comes out of the strike, both within and outside of the union?

Duchemin: I hope what comes out of this strike is a message to working class Americans that you don’t have to accept what the company gives you. You don’t have to accept, because they’re going to try all the fear tactics. “You trying to get higher wages? We’re going to have to close down. You want better healthcare? We’re not going to be able to afford your wages.” That’s all bullshit! Excuse my language. They’re fear tactics, so hopefully they can see us stand tall between all the GM threats that are coming out. They can take our healthcare, they can lock us out, they can lock us up, but if we stay strong and everybody stays strong, you’ll get what you want, as long as we don’t accept what they give us.

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