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CounterPunch
November
14, 2002
Getting 9/11-Baited
War and a Union Election
by RON LARE
At a May 2002 United Auto Workers (UAW) Local
600 polling-place near Detroit, two election opponents--a leading
local officer and a former UAW international rep in his 70's--got
into a fight allegedly involving spitting and punching. In the
same election, activist Judy Wraight and I had a less colorful
but equally intense political confrontation with the local's
ruling caucus when that caucus chose to make Sept. 11 and the
war in Afghanistan the most prominent election issues.
A UNION LOCAL AT THE HEART OF THE FORD
EMPIRE
30,000-member UAW Local 600 includes
workers at the historic Ford Rouge Plant in Dearborn, Michigan,
near Detroit, as well as at Visteon, Rouge Steel, parts suppliers,
Henry Ford Health Systems, and other locations and employers.
I had surprised the local union bureaucracy in 1999 with the
first local-wide opposition victory in decades, running on a
program of strike action, union democracy, independence from
the Democrats and Republicans, and international labor solidarity.
In the May 2002 Local 600 elections, I was an incumbent local-wide
executive board member. My running mate, Judy Wraight, sought
a similar position.
LOCAL PRESIDENT CHARMED BY "BILL"
FORD
An April 2000 "Fortune" magazine
story on our boss, Ford CEO and chairman, William Clay Ford,
said: "With his disarming smile and his earnestness, [Ford]
has charmed some of Ford Motor's most ardent adversaries. He
talks on the phone and occasionally lunches with Jerry Sullivan,
president of UAW Local 600. Says Sullivan: 'His concern for the
people, for the community, for the environment--those are things
you just don't see in industrialists.' " Local President
Sullivan argues that his lunches with "Bill" Ford--and
naming a "family and learning center" after him--help
protect members' jobs.
Only restoring the UAW's reputation for
fighting the boss can reverse the union's decline in membership
numbers. But Judy and I oppose Sullivan's politics as well as
his business unionism. For example, the local leadership nationalistically
blames steelworkers' job losses on "the actions of foreign
governments", instead of proposing solidarity actions with
unions abroad. Sullivan blasted liberal media for criticizing
former U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey's Vietnam war record. Sullivan
removed from Local 600's walls reproductions of Diego Rivera's
world-renowned murals depicting life at the Rouge.
In Sullivan's absence, the local's leading
body voted up Judy's solidarity resolution against use of the
Taft Hartley Act or U.S. troops against the ILWU struggle on
west coast docks. But at the previous meeting, Sullivan had dismissed
these dangers, saying with a chuckle that Bush has "other
places" in mind for the troops (Iraq).
CANDIDATES OPPOSE WAR AND RACISM
In the 2002 election, Judy Wraight and
I campaigned for Local 600 strike preparation marches to nearby
Ford World HQ. But from the start, we had also proposed that
Local 600 oppose the Afghanistan war. Many Local 600 members
live near the Ford plant and union hall in the nation's largest
Arab-American community, in Dearborn. Immediately after Sept.
11, we and a Local 600 African-American activist opposed repression
of our Arab-American co-workers-on or off the job--in a letter
published in Arab-American newspapers. We tried to get the local
union to make a similar statement. We promoted a speak-out against
racism and war at an historic Black church in Detroit. We helped
broaden a protest initiated by one of the local's units against
the Detroit Police murder of one of its members. We proposed
a Local 600 rank & file members' statement against the Afghanistan
war, like some members signed against the 1991 Iraq war ("Our
enemy is here at home.! Our enemy is the same business interests
who started this war...").
"9/11-BAITING" UNION DISSIDENTS
OVER AFGHANISTAN WAR
We don't disagree with the bureaucracy
on everything. We applauded UAW organizing successes. We cited
top Local 600 officers' support for AFL-CIO-sponsored Jobs with
Justice, death-row African-American journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal,
and the Charleston 5 dockworkers repressed for picketing waterfront
scabs. But Sullivan's ruling caucus attacked us in a leaflet
for my opponent that said: "Judy and Ron: who do they speak
for? ...members were outraged at the publications put out by
these candidates for UAW Local 600 Executive Board denouncing
U.S. action in Afghanistan. No denunciation about the events
that took place on September 11, 2001, just criticism of U.S.
response. At every Executive Board meeting and General Council
they announce when and where anti war meetings will take place.
If they don't believe in stopping the threat to the American
Way of life and protecting American lives then what does that
say about them? First and foremost of our concerns should be
those who's lives forever changed on 9/11, the fate of our troops
in harms way defending our country and it's citizens, those who
lost their lives on 9/11 simply because they were Americans.
From the world Trade Center, Pentagon and a desolate field in
Pennsylvania, let their sacrifice be our guiding light. Let the
courage and bravery of the firemen and police ! officers who
perished trying to save lives be our strength. The 3 African
American children and their teachers on board the plane that
crashed into the Pentagon on their way to the west coast for
winning scholarships our hope for a better tomorrow. If you want
Ron Lare and Judy Wraight to be your voice on the Local 600 Executive
Board and your union representative in the community then vote
for them.... If not, send a message on election day loud and
clear, if you don't want their brand of unionism or brand of
patriotism."
We replied that, like the UAW International,
we had "deplored" Sept. 11. But the ruling caucus "distorts
our record by confusing Sept. 11 with the Afghanistan war".
We pointed to the range of anti-war views within the UAW, from
the Detroit Labor Committee for Peace & Justice that sometimes
meets at a UAW Local, to UAW Region 1A Retiree News that printed
U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee's speech against the war and prints anti-war
and anti-capitalist editorials. However, "There does not
appear to be a range of views among the 'Jerry Sullivan Unity
Team.'" We acknowledged that we are socialists and quoted
Walter Reuther against red-baiting (while of course not claiming
he would have supported us).
"MEMBERS WEREN'T VOTING AGAINST
YOU BECAUSE OF THE WAR"
The real reason the bureaucracy attacked
us was our proposals like strike action over the deaths of 6
Rouge Plant workers in a 1999 Powerhouse explosion--instead,
the UAW agreed to shield the bosses from legal action. We want
democracy, like continued distribution of executive board minutes
to the larger governing body-instead, the board eliminated restrictions
on where the board invests dues money. But militants are not
well-organized. They come together against Ford's in-plant arrest
and firing of an African- American officer for yelling at a foreman,
mid-contract increases in health care co-pays, etc., but there
isn't an ongoing opposition caucus. By contrast, the ruling caucus
has huge resources for voter-turnout and name-recognition among
the local's 15,000 active and 15,000 retired members, spread
over 31 units and 50 miles. Our reply to the last-minute attack
got to only a few hundred members. A successful African-American
independent candidate told us after the! election, "Members
weren't voting against you because of the war. They voted for
the in-crowd because you made them campaign local-wide like they
never did before." Still, I received 2881 votes to my opponent's
5197.
THE PRICE OF SUPPORTING NADER
The attacks on us weren't surprising.
In 2000, I asked fellow executive board members not to put my
name on Al Gore literature, because I supported Ralph Nader.
The rest of the board answered by taking my name off the local
letterhead stationery, and off all local union literature, including
the Charleston 5 fundraiser leaflet they had me write (while
keeping their own names on it). But we wrote that the attacks
on us were small compared to: "...the problem of how to
promote a fighting spirit against union members' common enemy,
William Clay Ford and Company. The Administration Caucus 'party
line' seems to be that we're all one big happy family with the
company, except those of us in the union who don't agree with
that 'line.'"
OTHER PROGRESSIVE LOCAL CANDIDATES
Judy Wraight still holds offices from
earlier elections in one local "unit", showing that
workers may indeed vote for anti-war candidates whom they know
well. Although they did not oppose the war in their 2002 election
literature, it's encouraging that other progressive candidates
did well. One took the assembly plant presidency, something unparalleled
for decades. A former international rep and local financial secretary
came out of retirement to run with a local presidential candidate
on their own reform ideas and gain impressive vote totals.
REFORM AND INTERNATIONALISM IN LOCAL
HISTORY
In the early 1980's, a Local 600-wide
opposition was inspired by broad UAW reform forces, by the Black
Liberation movement in the auto plants (such as DRUM), by the
movement against South African apartheid, and by socialists from
1960's movements who went into auto plants in the 1970's. That
Local 600 opposition collapsed in the 1980's layoffs. In the
early 1990's, a local opposition combined Victor Reuther's and
Jerry Tucker's national UAW-New Directions reform movement with
international issues including opposition to the Gulf War. Only
national movements can sustain widespread local opposition and
compete for power. But Teamsters for a Democratic Union remains
the only national reform success story in a U.S. union.
NATIONAL "UNION REFORM/ GLOBAL JUSTICE"
ALLIANCE ?
Today, a new Local 600 "union reform/
global justice" alliance might stretch from members opposed
to invading Iraq, to supporters of the new UAW Solidarity Coalition,
to the national "Labor Notes" newsletter, to members
who think strikes are not out of date or who just want to see
everything in UAW contracts before they vote on them. The year
2003 could see both the shop floor and the internationalist sides
of such an alliance revived, as the Big 3 auto contracts expire
and war on Iraq begins.
POSTSCRIPT: At the Nov. 2002 Local 600
General Council meeting, President Sullivan said Bush's war with
Iraq could "destroy the Middle East" and even the U.S.
Perhaps he is responding to left pressure. Or is concerned about
the weakness of the Democrats' Me-Too War Party congressional
campaigns. Whatever his intentions, we're looking for unity in
action with union officers and members against the war.
Ron Lare
is a former executive board member, UAW Local 600 (Ford Rouge
and other plants). He can be reached at: RonLare@aol.com.
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November 10,
2002
Ali Abunimah
Sharon's
Appendix
M. Shahid
Alam
Political Geography
Zionist Theses and Anti-Theses
Michael Neumann
Demonstrating a Genteel Reticence
Rosemary &
Walter Brasch
Personal Possession:
War and Iraq, a Recollection
Ralph Nader
The Mid-term Elections
Mark J. Palmer
Bring Back the Grizzly
Robert Fisk
Bush's "Clean Shot"
Dave Marsh
And the Beat(ing) Goes On
Adam Engel
No Blood for Marijuana in Iraq
Josh Frank
Sleater-Kinney
Rocks
Our Protest Songs Are Here
Clifford Lyle Marshall
Give the Trinity Back to the Salmon
Zeynep Toufe
Turn These Children into Stone
Philip Farruggio
In Name Only
Charles Sullivan
Mountain Party Rising!
Bernard, Krieger, Alam
Poets'Basement
Resources:
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