Decatur's largest Black church to hear speeches from national civil rights and labor leaders. Three weeks later, marking the first anniversary of the lockout, over 400 people crossed over the Staley property line in non-violent protest. Police sprayed the crowd with pepper gas, with the rank-and-file Staley workers in front suffering the worst of its effects. As in any union, problems of racism and sexism troubled the local and initially when the lockout occurred hundreds posted signs of Biggest General Motors Strike in 25 Years support for the local on their lawns. Community outreach continued during the lockout as by Dianne Feeley workers sought a meeting with What started on March 5 as a local Over the past 25 years both local clergy and congregations. labor dispute at two General Motors' unemployment and forced overtime Workers were encouraged to talk brake-parts plants in Dayton, Ohio has been increasing. According to to their pastors, citing the Biblical snowballed into the largest strike Juliet Schor's The Overworked basis for the dignity of work. against GM since 1970. By the end American (NY: Basic Books, 1992), Six months into the lockout, sixty of the 17-day strike, most North the average U.S. worker puts in an Decatur pastors placed an ad in American assembly plants, and 30 additional 168 hours a year, or the local Sunday paper calling for parts plants were shut down. Over nearly an additional month's worth the company to end the lockout. 165,000 workers were out at the of work. This is particularly true in Subsequently, the company met strike's height: the vast majority laid the auto industry, where the ninewith the pastors, but the result off because of a shortage of brake hour day and six-day work week are wasn't exactly what Staley parts. Because the Dayton plants typical. In fact, the UAW estimates supply more than 90% of the brake that 59,000 jobs would be created if committed themselves to further components used in GM vehicles - plants were limited to a 40-hr. week. strengthen their support for the and because just-in-time inventory The media portrays auto workers as local. Decatur clergy then makes the system vulnerable - the highly paid, with no right to complain reached out to other clergy, strike cut GM's North American about their jobs because they are so nationally and internationally, production by 75%. GM's losses well compensated. But the suctotalled approximately $750 million. cessful 1994 Flint strike to force GM supportive actions across the At the heart of the strike was the to hire more workers (and thus issue of outsourcing, the growing The African-American workers practice of buying parts from inde- dramatized the fact that workers were organized into a caucus pendent parts suppliers. "Lean and want to be able to do something and first undertook building for a mean production" is based on a else with their lives besides work. labor presence in the annual two-tiered production system, with That strike was led by militants from strike did not resolve the issue of Decatur Martin Luther King the sec-ond, lower tier being the parade. The city of Decatur, parts suppliers, whose labor costs articulate reform caucus inside the which organized and controlled are typically one-third lower. The UAW. GM agreed to hire 779 the parade, told the workers that secret to the cheaper cost? Only workers - the first new hires in the they were welcome to march but one in five parts suppliers is entire GM system in eight years. that union banners and placards unionized. Spending on outsourc- The International UAW authorized were not permitted because "Dr. ing in the United States will exceed King had nothing to do with $100 billion this yea. strengthen its hand in the weeks
Of all the auto makers, GM has the before the bargain-ing opens for a Outraged, the African-American most extensive net-work of parts new three-year contract with the Big corporate America's insatiable need workers defied the order by plants. It has been the slowest of Three. (The current contract expires to cut back on decent jobs. At the carrying signs and banners the big three to cut costs aggres- on September 14.) Since his which attempted to liberate the sively by selling off its plants election last year, UAW president ignorance of city officials. Under Outside suppliers account for 67% Stephen Yokich has vowed to take Black-organized leadership for of the dollar value of a typical on the out-sourcing issue. Yokich's the first time, scores of white Chrysler, 61% of the value of a militant speeches, if backed up by union members marched, Ford, and only 57% of the value of a UAW muscle, would be a big forming the largest contingent in turnaround for the union, which has lost half its membership over the Although the General Motors-United last 15 years, primarily as a result of Three months after this event Auto Workers (UAW) contract came the largest interracial doesn't allow strikes over parade in Decatur's history, as outsourcing, the Dayton local GM drew a line in the sand because workers commemorated the charged GM with not keeping its anniversary of Dr. King's promises for additional jobs and competitors and arrest a marketassassination. After marchers invest-ment to upgrade the plant's share drop. According to the Wall carried banners proclaiming technology. This failure led to GM's Street Journal, GM is more "Labor Rights Equals Civil committed today to its cost-cutting Rights" and shouted "Black and White, United We Fight," through the streets, they streamed into 30 International Viewpoint April 1996 future jobs.
reduce forced over-time)
sacrifice market share and profits to win major concessions from the preserve its right to outsource whenever and wherever it needs to do so. The dispute was really about GM's fight to remain "competitive" in a global economy versus the needs and aspir-ations of its work A GM-UAW agreement was ratified by a vote of the Dayton workers on March 22. While the mainstream media has been downplaying the significance of the agreement, it appears the Dayton workers got what they asked for: GM reaffirmed its promise of 128 jobs, agreed to new technology at the Dayton plants and will pay the work force $5 million in compen-sation for past grievances. Within this framework, the agreement does allow GM to use outside suppliers. Therefore this outsour-cing. However no one From the beginning of the strike the UAW International leadership consciously confined the issues to very limited demands. They never used the media's spotlight on Dayton as an opportunity to attack strike's conclusion Richard Shoemaker, UAW vice president in charge of GM workers, commented, "This doesn't set the stage for anything, it simply puts behind us the issues in this dispute." GM intends to shed more of its parts plants and accelerate its outsourcing. Only a union committed to organizing the unorganized work force can turn that situation around. What this strike showed was that a section of the U.S. working class is prepared. *
The author is a leading member of the U.S.
group Solidarity.
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* USA