BY CAPPY KIDD
EAST PEORIA, Illinois - Rodney Garman, a member of United
Auto Workers (UAW) Local 974 and one of the central rank-and-
file leaders of the UAW fight against Caterpillar, died in a
Chicago hospital February 15 after a lengthy illness. Funeral
services followed by a reception were held here February 19.
"I buried him with his union jacket and his `Illegally Terminated' union hat," said Linda Garman, Rodney's wife and co-fighter. "During visiting hours a worker from the Tazewell strike came and put one of their fundraising pins on Rodney's coffin. I told my son to pin it on Rodney's shirt. Rodney was straight union. I wanted him to be buried straight union. That's how he was."
After the service, a covered dish supper was organized at the UAW 974 union hall for Garman's family, friends, and co- fighters. Following the reception, several members of the Tactical Response team talked with the Militant about Garman's role in the Caterpillar struggle and other battles.
Members of the UAW at Caterpillar plants in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Colorado waged a 163-day strike in 1992 and a 17-month strike in 1994-95 against the company's arbitrary firings and unfair labor practices. Despite voting down a management contract offer by 81 percent, strikers began returning to work in December 1995 after top UAW officials called off the walkout. In March 1998, a contract was ratified in a close vote after the company backed down and agreed to reinstate 160 workers it had fired during the battle. The two- tier setup and other concessions in the contract are being resisted today by many of the unionists and new hires.
Garman was a founder and core leader of a rank-and-file committee known as the Tactical Response team, nicknamed the "Blue Shirts." Originating out of UAW Local 974 in Peoria, Illinois, during the second strike in 1994, the Blue Shirts fought to mobilize the power of the union ranks in the battle against Caterpillar and other workers struggles.
"We started out with 18 or so people, meeting in basements and back yards at first," said fellow Blue Shirt Bill Wheat.
"Rodney always felt there could be something better for working people," said Ron Heller, another Blue Shirt. "He would never give up, even when many others were ready to throw in the towel."
"The thing that was unique about Rodney was that he had no fear," added Jim Peacock, also part of the group. "Most people, myself included, will second-guess and think things over. Once he believed a cause was just, Rodney was committed. He had no fear of the management, of the cops, of Vance Security, or the threats of being fired."
Wheat explained that at the height of the strike in 1994-95, the Blue Shirts grew to about 250 people throughout the Caterpillar system. Of these, about 50 were on a list of "core people," including Garman. Wheat said, "These were the people you could depend on, who went through the 1992 strike and felt we needed something more organized this time."
Peacock described one of the Blue Shirt activities, "There were about 30 of us who would regularly picket [at the General Office, or G.O.] and confront the corporate officers who were leading the attack against our union. Rodney was always on this team. Don Fites, the CEO, and the other corporate officers were afraid of this picket line. They would enter the parking lot scrunched down in the back seats of their cars, their faces hidden behind newspapers. They preferred to be anonymous. They didn't like coming face to face with the workers they were attempting to screw over. Fites was annoyed at having to enter through the garbage door."
Built links with others' struggles
The Blue Shirts, from the beginning, reached out and made
links with other workers' struggles. In 1995 they supported
members of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union on
strike at a Lamont, Illinois, oil refinery. They backed a
strike of UAW foundry workers in 1997 in Vermont, Illinois.
"We backed workers in the UPIU at Trailmobile in Vandalia,
Illinois," Wheat added. "We found out that Caterpillar was
sending scabs from Cat to cross their picket lines."
Early on in the United Mine Workers of America strike last year against Freeman United Coal, the Blue Shirts invited the striking miners to one of their weekly meetings. Blue Shirts regularly made trips to the UMWA picket lines in central Illinois. Tom Smith, another Blue Shirt, said "A big group of us went to the October 11 UMWA solidarity rally for the miners in Virden. Rodney was there. He helped with all of these fights."
Recently, the Tactical Response team has been organizing solidarity for the 82 strikers at Tazewell Machine Works among Caterpillar workers and others in the region.
One of the central issues of the 1994-95 Cat strike was the arbitrary firing of union members who stood up to the company. "Caterpillar fired Rodney about four times. Whenever there was a picket line incident, Rodney would be blamed, whether he was present or not, and mailed another letter informing him that his job was terminated," said Peacock.
"Terminated" workers, including Garman, traveled to earth- moving equipment trade shows to get out the union's side of the story. They would work the trade show floors wearing Caterpillar-yellow T-shirts that read "Ask me about Cat."
On Aug. 1, 1995, Garman was arrested and charged with assault for bumping into a Vance Security guard as both were crossing the street at the morning picket outside the G.O. Though witnesses on the scene said the Vance guard initiated the contact, Garman was the only one charged.
"When we learned that Rodney had been arrested, 40 to 50 Blue Shirts quickly gathered at the Peoria County jail to demand his release," said Wheat. "However, we had to wait three days to get him out because the sheriff's department would not tell us how much the bail was supposed to be." Meanwhile, the Blue Shirts sent teams to his house to protect his family.
"It was while we were waiting in the lobby of the county jail that we learned from inmates that Caterpillar had been hiring convicts as strike breakers. A bus would pick them up at the jail, take them to Cat, and back to jail after the shift. If they missed the bus, a deputy would take them to work," Wheat said. When the Blue Shirts tried to contest this, they were told it was illegal to use state and federal prisoners as scabs but legal to use county prisoners.
Wheat recalled, "The other inmates treated Rodney with great respect. They had all heard he was a striker from Caterpillar. The first night he was in jail he missed his meal. The inmates gave him food from the vending machines. He wasn't given a bed to sleep on that night, because the jail was so overcrowded, so one of the inmates gave him his bed."
Charged with assault and threatened with a four-year prison term, Garman was advised by the attorney hired by the UAW international to plea-bargain the charges. He was fined $750, had to serve two more days in jail, and was sentenced to two years' probation during which he was forbidden to come within one block of any Caterpillar facility, attend any union rallies, or approach any company officials in public places. During this probation, he continued to attend meetings of the Blue Shirts but could not go to the picket lines.
Smith recalled, "The Blue Shirts would recruit other strikers by talking to them on the picket line. That's how Holly [Smith's wife] and I got involved. We learned to take our knowledge to other unions and tell them what to expect. We realized you have to have the wives involved. You have got to have the support groups. Wives came to every meeting."
"I was right there with Rodney on the picket line," Linda Garman told the Militant. "When finances were difficult, Rodney would say, `This is a fight we have to go through and we'll find a way to make it.' And we did."
Smith continued, "Rodney was always one that stood up. He would do whatever was necessary to defend the union and win the strike. He knew how far he could go. He set an example and was an inspiration to me and hundreds of others. When I decided to join the Blue Shirts I had already decided that I wanted to be just like Rodney."
In February 1998 and again in March, Garman vigorously campaigned for a `Nó vote on a contract recommended by the UAW international and local leadership. Even though the March contract proposal called for the reinstatement of the illegally terminated, Garman felt that the rest of the contract made unnecessary concessions that would seriously weaken the union.
Garman, who in his youth wanted to become a teacher, wrote numerous letters championing the workers' cause. Several of his letters were published in Peoria area papers. One of these letters, which was published in the Peoria Journal-Star and reprinted in the Jan. 25, 1999, Militant, was titled "Caterpillar Wants To Crush Working People's Aspirations."
In it he says, "Why should the Cat struggle matter to you? Because the struggle at Caterpillar was a battle over the direction of our society. Cat's assault on its workers is part of the attack on all working people, whatever your job, wherever you live. Cat workers were fighting not just for themselves and their families, and for the generation of workers who are passing on and for the younger workers yet to be. Concessions demanded by Cat are designed to undercut the power of workers in the future.
"Caterpillar's long-range strategy is one of the capitalist elite to crush working people's aspirations for a better world. The Cat struggle has shown that the whole system of elite power is the enemy."
Garman worked at Caterpillar for 32 years and had for a brief period accepted a job as a supervisor. Linda Garman said her husband had early on relinquished the supervisory position when he was told how Cat expected the supervisors to treat the employees.
Linda said both she and Rodney were a lot happier when he went back to being a worker.
Blue Shirt Kenny Whetstone said, "He couldn't treat people the way Caterpillar wanted, and got out. If you've got the kind of principles he had, you could not divorce yourself from the things Caterpillar wanted."
When the second contract proposal was approved in March 1998, Garman returned to work. "He wore his `Illegally Terminated' hat or his blue team hat everyday," said Linda.
In August 1998, he traveled to Chicago to participate in a Militant Labor Forum on developments in the labor movement. Upon his return, Linda Garman said, "he started talking to other people about what was happening in the world. Up until the very end Rodney still wanted to fight. `It's not over yet,' he would say."