BY DON MACKLE
NEW YORK - Chanting "No Money, No Work" about 80 striking
members of United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 365 at Standard
Motors picketed and rallied outside the plant October 13. Union
and company officials were to meet that day for the first
negotiating session since the strike began October 2.
The strikers met at 9:00 a.m. for the rally along heavily traveled Northern Boulevard. Many motorists honked in support of the pickets. Noticeably noisy were passing truck drivers, city bus drivers, and telephone company vehicles. Members of the Communication Workers of America recently completed a successful strike against the Bell Atlantic phone company.
Representatives of the UAW's international and Region 9A offices attended the October 13 rally, as well as City Council speaker Peter Vallone, who is the Democratic candidate for governor of New York.
The Standard Motors strikers have been working to keep the picket lines up 24 hours a day. Some have done volunteer picket duty on the weekends to keep an eye on the plant. "I've been here 22 years. I just can't give it up like that," explained Assel Brown, an operator in the plant, while picketing on October 24. "When you are fighting for a good cause you just can't give up."
The strikers' central demand is that the company back off its proposal to cut medical benefits to retirees and to begin charging union members $50 a month for their medical insurance. Currently about 266 retirees are covered by the company. At one time the plant employed more than 1,500 workers. Today less than 200 unionists operate the highly automated machines. Almost all those still in the plant have well over 15 years experience.
The company has hired private security guards since the beginning of the strike. The guards, dressed in semi-military uniforms, come out of the plant about once an hour to count the number of people on the picket line. Strikers say the company has also begun bringing in scabs from out of town to work in the plant alongside company supervisors, technicians, and engineers. As many as 30 scabs live in the plant full-time according to pickets.
Strikers have also stood up to company efforts to sow seeds of division in the union. One night about four days into the strike, company personnel came out of the plant at night to talk with the pickets. They claimed to have made an offer to the union officials and wanted to know why the union hadn't told the workers. The company people urged strikers to return to work while talks continued. Strikers didn't fall for the trap. "The problem was you should have made an acceptable offer earlier and we wouldn't have had to go on strike," picket captain and union shop steward Daniel Cintron told the company reps.
Strikers laughed as they recounted the incident, and explained the particular company official involved would never speak to workers in the plant, even ignoring those who said good morning to him.
Strikers received certified letters from the company at their homes October 17, accusing the union of lying. The company letter claims Standard Motors never asked for reductions in vacation, sick days and holidays or demanded workers pay $50 a month for insurance. It asks the workers to return to work while details of the contract are worked out.
"Mentiras, mentiras" (Lies, lies), called out one group of workers in Spanish on the picket line October 19 when asked about the letter. They said they saw it as an effort by the company to divide the union. The letter, in English and Spanish, was taped to the building wall behind the pickets. Below it was a notice for a union meeting the next morning.
Strikers were not unanimous in their opinion of the letter. Some said they were uncertain about what to believe and were anxious to get to the union meeting. They wanted to hear an explanation from union officials about what was going on in negotiations with the company.
The strike has drawn support from workers in the area. Unionists from the United Transportation Union and the Communication Workers of America stopped by the picket line October 19 to express solidarity with the strike.
Don Mackle is a member of UAW Local 365 at Cecilware.