"I'm going to keep fighting until the last light is turned out," union member Dale Nye told a rally at the end of the march. The local is planning a protest at Bayer's U.S. corporate headquarters in Pittsburgh some time this summer.

Bayer executives announced late last year that the Elkhart facility would be phased out by the end of 2003 and the production shifted to plants in Pennsylvania, Germany, and Mexico. One new Bayer plant was built in Mexico in the early 1990s in anticipation of expanded sales. When the Mexican currency, the peso, collapsed in 1994 however, Bayer sales there dropped by 30 percent.

The latest plan to cut jobs comes after the USWA had made extensive concessions to the bosses' profit demands over the past decade, including wage cuts and job combinations. Employment at the sprawling Bayer complex in Elkhart has fallen from 3,000 to 2,000 today.

Trudy Manderfeld, Local 12273 president, reported on her recent trip to Bayer headquarters in Leverkusen, Germany. She said corporate officials would not meet with her, but she got a better response from officials of the German workers unions at Bayer who sent a solidarity message to the rally protesting the plans to close the Elkhart facility.

"Don't fall into the trap of being played off against each other," the message said. "Why would German workers want U.S. workers laid off? Something is wrong in the system." The German union appeal was especially noteworthy since unemployment there and in Mexico is much higher at this time than in the United States.

Bayer's plans pose a challenge to working people in different countries of how to unite in a genuine fight against devastating unemployment as the bosses continue layoffs to boost profits. USWA officials, however, organized the January 29 protest along lines that promoted an America-first chauvinist appeal. "Keep Speedy in the U.S.A." was the main theme of the many placards printed for the march and rally. Other placards read, "No go Mexico."

USWA District 7 assistant director Jim Robinson blamed "unfettered world trade" for causing "good paying jobs to go overseas." He praised the recent WTO protests in Seattle, where USWA of other top union officials pressed the U.S. government to implement protectionist policies that benefit particular groups of U.S. capitalists.

Some workers in the march did point out other facts about the challenge they faced. The production and distribution operations the bosses have already shifted from Elkhart have gone to other U.S. facilities--most of them lower paid and nonunion.

Harvey McArthur is a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 100A in Chicago.  
 
 
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