Interview with Rank-and-File Leader Gregg Shotwell

Fight Back! interviewed Gregg Shotwell, a key leader of the rank-and-file movement that is growing inside the United Auto Workers. A worker at the Delphi auto parts plant in Cooperstown, Michigan, Shotwell helped organize the mass meetings of autoworkers that took place over the past two months. These meetings led to the formation of the rank-and-file organization, Soldiers of Solidarity.

After decades of concessionary contracts, rank-and-file United Auto Worker activists have worked tirelessly the last two months resisting attacks on auto parts workers at Delphi Corporation.

Peoria, IL – United Auto Workers (UAW) members employed by Caterpillar Inc. ratified a six-year agreement, Jan. 9, 2005 . Many union members called it, “The worst contract in the history of the union.”

Canton, IL – About 100 trade unionists and others gathered here, July 8, for Solidarity Day 2. This second annual picnic and program celebrating the solidarity of working people brought together labor activists from Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota and Missouri. Rob Wilson, a rank-and-file leader of UAW members at Caterpillar told the crowd that the corporate elite that run this country do not care about anyone or anything except their bottom line. Larry Solomon, retired president of Decatur UAW Local 751 and a legendary labor leader of the mid-1990s battle with Caterpillar, gave the Solidarity Day address, in which he called on workers to come together to transform the labor movement and the country as a whole. Other speakers included Tom Seymour, retired president of UAW Local 858 and Leroy McKnight, a General Motors retiree.

Meredosia, IL – Celanese Emulsions illegally locked out the 150 families of Boilermakers Local 484 in Meredosia, Illinois, on June 5, 2005. In a continuing war on American workers, Celanese, a German-based multinational affiliated with National Starch, turned the tranquility of this small Illinois river community of 1100 into a war zone, changing the lives of local residents forever. Instead of negotiating in good faith [the subject of an National Labor Relations Board charge], Celanese brought in the services of Special Response Team, a Roanoke, Virginia-based company that specializes in breaking strikes and unions.