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CounterPunch
March 4,
2003
UAW Local 600's Opposition
to War
Why Unions Must Fight Imperialist Wars
By RON LARE
There is dramatic progress in anti-war sentiment
at historic United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 600, which represents
30,000 active and retired members at the Ford Rouge and other
plants and employers. In a Nov. 2002 CounterPunch posting, I
told how top local officers had "9/11-baited" union
election rivals who opposed the Afghanistan war, but I noted
officers' recent statements against war on Iraq.
On Feb. 3, 2003, Local 600's General
Council meeting voted unanimously for an Engine & Fuel Tank
Unit delegate's motion simply saying the Local opposes war on
Iraq. Judy Wraight from the Tool & Die Unit proposed signing
the "U.S. Labor against the War" (USLAW) resolution
by local officers of several unions (see Workers
Against War by JoAnn Wypijewski). President Sullivan supported
the original motion, but he opposed signing onto USLAW, counter
proposing the UAW International Executive Board (IEB) as a possible
anti-war labor leadership. Still, the resolution from historic
Local 600 is itself a big step forward.
"DETROIT LABOR
FOR PEACE " AT UAW 600
On Feb. 22, Local 600 hosted a forum
sponsored by the Detroit Labor Committee for Peace & Justice,
the Detroit Chapter of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW)
and the National Lawyers Guild/Sugar Law Center. The latter's
Julie Hurwitz chaired the forum and said over 120 local unions
have passed resolutions against the war, including UAW 1700,
600, and 909. Local 600 Financial Secretary Russ Leone welcomed
the forum with his own anti-war statement.
Union of Needletrades, Industrial and
Textile Employees (UNITE) Vice Pres. and Labor Party leader Noel
Beasley said the U.S. is "the only country on earth to use
weapons of mass destruction" at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Detroit CLUW president and Office & Professional Employees'
International Union (OPEIU) officer Millie Hall announced a demonstration
at a local armory at the start of the war. Greens activist and
American Postal Workers Union (APWU) 480-481 steward and newsletter
editor Paul Felton said politicians, "want us to stand with
our hands on our hearts saying the pledge of allegiance while
they pick our pockets." UAW Local 909 president Al Benchich
warned against making "America
the new Rome" . Retail, Wholesale and Department Store
Union (RWDSU-UFCW) Local 1064's Elena Herrada tied the war drive
to "third world" conditions in Detroit and answered
a written question from the audience by saying UN approval for
war should not slow anti-war organizing. At an open mic, a UAW-DaimlerChrysler-Jeep
member described management's use of war atmosphere to justify
forced overtime. A young woman described anti-war outreach by
student labor solidarity activists at University of Michigan.
UAW Region 1A Director and African-American community leader
Jimmy Settles, and UAW-Dearborn Assembly Plant President Gary
Walkowicz were notable by their presence. Detroit City Council
member Maryann Mahaffey spoke briefly from the floor.
The main speakers urged over 200 present
to pressure union officers to oppose the war. UAW President Ron
Gettelfinger and some other UAW International Executive Board
(IEB) members need that pressure. After the IEB failed to act,
IEB officers Elizabeth Bunn, Richard Shoemaker and Bob King appeared
at the Feb. 15 Detroit anti-war events and Bunn spoke to the
rally.
DEBATING HOW TO MOBILIZE
UNIONS
The best-know Feb. 22 speakers at Local
600 were International UAW Vice Pres. for Organizing, Bob King,
and Michigan AFL-CIO President Mark Gaffney. Gaffney said "the
drumbeat for war is part of an anti-union movement" that
will remove union rights for 140,000 federal employees in the
name of "homeland security." King said Bush talks of
"democratizing the Middle East while they're destroying
democracy here." King's presence moved the anti-war movement
in the UAW a big step forward.
King asked why Detroit labor couldn't
turn out more members for anti-war events. But I once heard him
answer that question at a Martin Luther King memorial at Local
600: "It's been a long time since we 'fought the power.'"
"Progressives" now in UAW leadership haven't dealt
with the reasons why Walter Reuther's brother, Victor, quit the
UAW's ruling Administration Caucus in the 1980's to co-found
the national UAW opposition "New Directions Movement."
Here's what those trying to mobilize UAW members are up against.
The UAW backs "joint company-union" programs that sap
its fight-back. Increasingly, UAW reps are appointees committed
to re-electing the old-guard local presidents who appoint them.
UAW members are infuriated when officers' kids are hired first.
The UAW settles auto parts-supplier organizing strikes without
winning the right to strike enjoyed by UAW-Big 3 members. The
UAW hasn't organized "foreign" auto assembly "transplants".
The UAW abandoned its striking Local 2036 for rejecting contracts,
while the UAW sits on a $800,000,000 strike fund. Some UAW locals
or units cede the role of publicizing civil rights to hypocritical
company pronouncements. Unless it regains its fighting reputation,
the UAW won't mobilize much for anything. Among shop-floor UAW
reform activists who fight the bureaucracy over these issues,
e-mail discussion has been running against the war. A fighting,
progressive leadership is possible.
King could have also asked, "Located
in the nation's largest concentration of Arab-Americans, can't
Local 600 turn out more Arab-American Ford workers, most of whom
are against the war?" (The other side is mobilizing: as
I write, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz is in town
courting Iraqi-American support for a war.) 10% of the Feb. 22
audience was African-American. This does not reflect the composition
of Detroit labor or the black community's anti-war activism.
As the only U.S. integrated, mass movement, labor is key to unity
against the war. But labor activism returns only with activist
union leadership committing resources. Union officers must go
to plant gates to campaign face-to-face to mobilize their members
on social issues as vigorously as they run for re-election. Officers
at Local 600 and elsewhere should thoroughly publicize their
positions on the war to their memberships, risking a rocky debate
to build solid support.
HELP THE DEMOCRATS
DO... WHAT ?
APWU'S Felton pointed out that the main
Feb. 22 speakers included Greens, Democrats and Labor Party members.
He said the Democrats should be ashamed of their national party's
lack of a position against war. Detroit AFL-CIO's Gaffney replied
that the Democrats can be changed, especially at election time.
What is at stake in this debate?
The left of the union bureaucracy in
effect says, "Bush has made war THE issue. To fight Bush
at all, the Democrats must fight against his war policy."
Some local and state Democratic Party bodies oppose the war for
now. But I think the top national Democrats aim cynically to
use union opposition to just this one war to promote the opposite
of an anti-war party. The top Democrats want to win back their
historic role as the bosses' favorite "Party of War",
better able to sell "sensible" wars to workers than
is the Republican "Party of Depression." The Democratic
Party chiefs hope their capitalist masters will look at the mobilization
against war under Bush and say to themselves, "It would
be easier to get a war on if Al Gore were president, because
he'd pick smarter wars and get more support for them from the
unions."
The anti-Vietnam-War movement failed
to build an alternative to the Democrats. Bush may be defeated
by a Democrat who leads us into war on North Korea or Columbia,
as Kennedy and Johnson led us into Vietnam. The international
anti-war movement has given the labor movement enough room seriously
to debate the war. We need a labor party that opposes war even
when troops are under fire, in wars approved by the UN.
NEW LABOR INTERNATIONALISM
?
Labor should reach out to the "Seattle
movement" that opened the door for union activists against
the war by marching for global justice even after the AFL-CIO
withdrew support following Sept. 11. The Seattle movement, in
turn, needs labor. Perhaps Jobs with Justice can bridge the gap
between unions and the global justice movement.
When U.S. unions support imperialist
wars, they can't build many international labor links. Labor
internationalism would pay off by getting "foreign"
unions' help in organizing auto assembly "transplants"
in the U.S., and by helping organize independent parts suppliers
and keep them in the U.S. as wages abroad rose. (Declining organization
of auto parts suppliers in the U.S. has cost more UAW memberships
than have moved abroad.) Latin-American, Canadian and U.S. unions
could strike jointly against the Free Trade Agreement of the
Americas (FTAA) as well as strike against wars. Threats of industrial
action and general strikes against the war in Britain, Scotland,
Australia and Italy point the way forward.
Ron Lare,
former UAW Local 600 executive board member, RonLare@aol.com.
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