when the lockout occurred, hundreds posted signs of support for the local on their support tor the local on their lawns. Community outreach continued during the lockout as workers sought a meeting with local clergy and congregations. Workers were encouraged to talk to their pastors, citing the Biblical basis for the dignity of work. Six months into the lockout, sixty Decatur pastors placed an ad in the local Sunday paper calling for the company to end the lockout. Subsequently, the company met with the pastors, but the result wasn't exactly what Staley desired: several pastors committed themselves to further strengthen their support for the local. Decatur clergy then reached out to other clergy, nationally and internationally, sparking coverage and supportive actions across the globe. The African-American workers were organized into a caucus and first undertook building for a labor presence in the annual Decatur Martin Luther King parade. The city of Decatur, which organized and controlled the parade, told the workers that they were welcome to march but that union banners and placards were not permitted because "Dr. King had nothing to do with labor." Outraged, the African-American workers defied the order by carrying signs and banners which attempted to liberate the ignorance of city officials. Under Black-organized leadership for the first time, scores of white union members marched, forming the largest contingent in the parade. Three months after this event came the largest interracial parade in Decatur's history, as workers commemorated the anniversary of Dr. King's assassination. After marchers carried banners proclaiming "Labor Rights Equals Civil Rights" and shouted "Black and White, United We Fight," through the streets, they streamed into anniversary of the people crossed over Biggest General by Dianne Feeley What started on March 5 as a local labor dispute at two General Motors' brake-parts plants in Dayton, Ohio snowballed into the largest strike against GM since 1970. By the end of the 17-day strike, most North American assembly plants, and 30 parts plants were shut down. Over 165,000 workers were out at the strike's height: the vast majority laid off because of a shortage of brake parts. Because the Dayton plants supply more than 90% of the brake components used in GM vehicles -and because just-in-time inventory makes the system vulnerable - the strike cut GM's North American production by 75%. GM's losses totalled approximately $750 million. At the heart of the strike was the issue of outsourcing, the growing practice of buying parts from independent parts suppliers. "Lean and mean production" is based on a two-tiered production system, with the sec-ond, lower tier being the parts suppliers, whose labor costs are typically one-third lower. The secret to the cheaper cost? Only one in five parts suppliers is unionized. Spending on outsourcing in the United States will exceed $100 billion this yea. Of all the auto makers, GM has the most extensive net-work of parts plants. It has been the slowest of the big three to cut costs aggressively by selling off its plants. Outside suppliers account for 67% of the dollar value of a typical Chrysler, 61% of the value of a Ford, and only 57% of the value of a GM vehicle. Although the General Motors-United Auto Workers (UAW) contract doesn't allow strikes over outsourcing, the Dayton local charged GM with not keeping its promises for additional jobs and invest-ment to upgrade the plant's technology. This failure led to GM's recent decision to equip the 1998 Camaro and Firebird with Robert Bosch antilock break systems. This would cost Dayton workers 128 lockout, over 400 the Staley property
Motors Stril future jobs.
As in any union, problems of racism and sexism troubled the local and initially re in 25 Years sacrifice market share and profits to win major concessions from the
UAW. GM is determined to preserve its right to outsource whenever and wherever it needs to
American (NY: Basic Books, 1992), do so. The dispute was really about the average U.S. worker puts in an GM's fight to remain "com-petitive" additional 168 hours a year, or in a global economy versus the nearly an additional month's worth needs and aspir-ations of its work of work. This is particularly true in force. the auto industry, where the ninehour day and six-day work week are A GM-UAW agreement was ratified typical. In fact, the UAW estimates by a vote of the Dayton workers on that 59,000 jobs would be created if March 22. While the mainstream plants were limited to a 40-hr. week. media has been downplaying the The media portrays auto workers as significance of the agreement, it highly paid, with no right to complain appears the Dayton workers got about their jobs because they are so what they asked for: GM reaffirmed well compensated. But the suc- its promise of 128 jobs, agreed to cessful 1994 Flint strike to force GM new technology at the Dayton to hire more workers (and thus plants and will pay the work force $5 reduce forced over-time million in compen-sation for past dramatized the fact that workers grievances. Within this framework, want to be able to do something the agreement does allow GM to else with their lives besides work. use outside suppliers. Therefore this That strike was led by militants from strike did not resolve the issue of New Directions, a small but outsour-cing. However no one articulate reform caucus inside the expected that it could. UAW. GM agreed to hire 779 workers - the first new hires in the From the beginning of the strike the entire GM system in eight years. UAW International leadership consciously confined the issues to The International UAW authorized the Dayton strike in order to very limited demands. They never strengthen its hand in the weeks used the media's spotlight on before the bargain-ing opens for a Dayton as an opportunity to attack new three-year contract with the Big corporate America's insatiable need Three. (The current contract expires to cut back on decent jobs. At the on September 14.) Since his strike's conclusion Richard election last year, UAW president Shoemaker, UAW vice president in Stephen Yokich has vowed to take charge of GM workers, comon the out-sourcing issue. Yokich's mented, "This doesn't set the stage militant speeches, if backed up by for anything, it simply puts behind us UAW muscle, would be a big the issues in this dispute." turnaround for the union, which has lost half its mem-bership over the GM intends to shed more of its parts last 15 years, primarily as a result of plants and accelerate its out-sourcing. outsourcing. Only a union comGM drew a line in the sand because mitted to organizing the unorit must cut costs, beat back ganized work force can turn that competitors and arrest a market- situation around. What this strike share drop. According to the Wall showed was that a section of the Street Journal, GM is more U.S. working class is prepared. * committed today to its cost-cutting efforts than it was two years ago, it had more cash to sustain a strike, The author is a leading member of the U.S and it showed it was willing to group Solidarity.
30 International Viewpoint April 1996
Over the past 25 years both unemployment and forced overtime has been increasing. According to
Juliet Schor's The Overworked
hampered broader support. But, during the lockout, and as a result of the Dr. King marches initiated by the African-American caucus, Jeanette Hawkins, the first African-American woman to be hired into the plant, was elected to the Bargaining Committee. Three white male candidates who supported diversifying the leadership withdrew their own candidacies and campaigned for Hawkins' election. Prior to the King marches, only one African American had been traveling regularly with the Road Warriors. After the marches, a number of locked-out African Americans went on the road, sometimes as a Black caucus but most often with the white workers and appealing to the previously untapped support of African Americans within the labor movement. At the beginning of the work-to-rule campaign, weekly solidarity meetings were initiated and spouses and children were invited to attend. The support from the spouses, mostly wives, cannot be understated. The wives and women workers later formed a bi-monthly support group during which the women would share the hardships of the lockout on family life. Garnering support from other women, many wives were empowered to sustain being the main family wage-earner, and others were encouraged to enter or reenter the work force. FIGHT OF THE DECADE No other local has drawn the line and waged the fight as the Staley workers have done. And the pain of knowing that Pepsi was soon to collapse from the pressure is almost unbearable. Yet this one tragic defeat also holds 1,000 lessons for the next union to take a stand for the labor movement. Local 7837 should be proud of those who gave of their lives for thirty long, grueling months and left workers and labor history forever changed. Thank you, Local 7837. We shall never forget you! * This article was originally published in the March-April issue of Against the Current, with the title "Snatched from the Jaws of Victory? Staley Workers End Lockout". It has been edited here for space reasons.