BY ANGEL LARISCY
PEORIA, Illinois - It's been a month since United Auto Workers (UAW) officials called off a strike against Caterpillar, Inc., by more than 9,000 union members in three states. Since then, discussion and debate continue every day on the lessons of the fight and its impact on organized labor and the entire working class.
The December 2 announcement by union officials that they were calling off the nearly 18-month-old strike came as workers were gathering to vote on the company's latest contract proposal. Many union members felt their vote on that offer would not carry much weight since UAW tops said the walkout was over no matter what the outcome of the ballot.
Caterpillar proposed a six-year agreement with no wage increases except cost-of-living adjustments, allowing 15 percent of the labor force to be made up of part-time and temporary workers, flexible schedules that would destroy the eight-hour day, weekend work without overtime pay, and elimination of some union representation rights.
Workers voted down the offer by 81 percent nationally. In Peoria, where the overwhelming majority of the strikers are, the vote was 97 percent against.
The back-to-work announcement was first heralded by the big-business press as a major blow against the UAW. "Union capitulation shows strike is now dull sword" read a headline in the December 5 New York Times. "The Caterpillar episode illustrates why strikes are becoming weak weapons," chimed in conservative columnist George Will in a nationally syndicated piece.
In the days and weeks since the strike ended, however, articles and editorials in the local press and other media have begun to assess the battle as an event with "no winners."
`I consider myself a fighter'
Unionists and their supporters, who kept the picket
lines going for a year and a half and stood up to the
company for more than five years, have their own opinions
on the outcome of the struggle so far.
"We didn't lose; the war's not over," remarked Tom Smith, a member of UAW Local 974 who worked at Caterpillar's Mossville engine plant north of Peoria. "I don't consider myself a loser," he continued. "I consider myself a fighter. I'm going back with my head up."
Many others now see going back to work as a chance to "regroup and rebuild" as Bill Hiatt, a 22-year employee with the construction equipment manufacturing giant, put it.
The most recent and longest walkout in the history of the UAW at Caterpillar came after three years of union members working without a contract. "The UAW bent over backwards to get along with Caterpillar between 1982 and 1992," Hiatt said. "But every contract since 1982 had concessions."
By the time the last contract expired in 1991, the company decided to push forward with attempts to more deeply gut workers' wages and benefits to make the company more competitive and increase profit rates.
Caterpillar presented the UAW with its "final offer," a proposal that called for the beginning of two tiers, no wage increases, concessions on health care, and rising job insecurity. Union members turned down the offer and walked off the job.
After striking for more than five months, UAW members were ordered back to work by union tops when Caterpillar announced it would implement its "final offer" and begin hiring replacements.
1992-94: fight continued on the job
Union members went back into the plants but did not
give up the fight. Workers began to organize activities
such as union T-shirt and button days, marches from the
time clocks, and parking lot rallies.
In the fall of 1993, the union began a series of walkouts and one-day strikes to protest company firings and disciplinary actions against UAW members because of their union activity. By June 1994, the union had filed some 100 complaints against the company with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). On June 21 of that year, the UAW called an unfair labor practices strike, which presents legal barriers to the employers permanently replacing workers.
In the first few weeks of the walkout, more than 25 percent of the UAW membership crossed the picket lines. The company began production with these line crossers, management, and office personnel, as well as temporary and permanent new hires Caterpillar claimed it would have hired anyway. After those initial weeks of the strike, almost no other union members crossed despite repeated back-to-work campaigns by the company.
For over 17 months, unionists stood on picket lines and carried out activities such as weekly rallies at Caterpillar's General Offices (G.O.) in downtown Peoria, a series of mass pickets, and a solidarity rally on the one- year anniversary of the strike.
When union officials abruptly called the strike off, many workers were opposed to the decision. They felt, however, that even though they were going back to work under less than optimum conditions, they had accomplished something just by making clear their determination to stay out and fight.
Learned discipline on picket lines
Ron Heller, a UAW member who picketed weekly at the
Mossville plant, said that during the recent strike union
members learned that "at the picket lines we have to have
discipline." The company had hired a security outfit
called Vance that is known for its intimidating and
provocative actions. Vance thugs used still and video
cameras, listening devices, and other tactics, so
unionists had to be organized and visible but pay
attention to how they conducted themselves.
Carol Cordle's husband Steve had over 25 years' seniority with Caterpillar when he was unjustly fired during the strike in 1995. Cordle said activities like those at the G.O. and the weekly rallies to greet management as they arrived at work had an impact. "Why else would they have built a skywalk to connect their two buildings and the parking garage?" she asked.
The strike supporter also commented that big rallies and pickets, like the one of over 350 people at the Mapleton plant on the one-year anniversary, showed that "we can have control."
Most strikers back on the job
The former strikers are now almost entirely back to
work. They are returning under the conditions of the 1992
contract, since the company legally cannot impose its
newest proposal with unfair labor practice complaints
still pending.
Caterpillar has implemented a "code of conduct" that sharply limits the speech and conduct of returning workers. The new work rules prohibit clothing with any reference to the strike and include a ban on the word "scab."
Upon their return, workers are required to attend a four-hour orientation session. A worker who was in one of the first groups to be called back at the Mossville plant said the company is bringing back a few workers at a time to attempt to control the situation. His group was made up of eight workers and 15 management and supervisory personnel. "It had the immediate impact of intimidation," he said.
Fay Vogelsang has 21 years at Caterpillar and works at the Mapleton foundry. She says during all these years she thought there was a decent relationship between Mapleton management and the workers.
When she returned to work the week before Christmas, Vogelsang said, "emotions were high on both sides - the strikers and line crossers and temporary workers." Everyone was apprehensive, she stated. "That first day back I was trained by a temporary" who was let go at the end of the week, she said. A week before Christmas, all of the 600 workers at the Mapleton foundry were back on the job. At some other facilities it has taken longer.
So far there are reports of more than two dozen firings and suspensions of unionists since their return to work. The company has also fired some line crossers.
Hiatt, who will be returning to work at the HH plant in East Peoria, thinks that the company is unlikely to fire large numbers of union militants for fear the sackings might ignite another explosion. "I don't think there's a master strategy," he said. "The company is wondering as much as anyone how this will turn out."
Claims in the big-business press that the strike tool is no longer an effective weapon are "probably as far from the truth as they can get," said worker Tom Smith. He noted the union does face a challenge with Caterpillar opening new plants in North Carolina and Tennessee that are nonunion.
The debate goes on in the pages of the bourgeois press.
"The best option is the one that labor is often
reluctant to take seriously for fear it will be abused:
cooperation," said a December 17 editorial in the Peoria
Journal Star. "Unions and managers who disagree on
everything else can generally agree on one thing: it's
important for the employer to be strong and profitable."
In a letter to the editor published in the December 23 Journal Star, Carrol Williams of Canton, Illinois, took issue with this view. "A lot of people do not realize that this is not just a dispute between Caterpillar and the UAW," Williams wrote. "This is a struggle between two different ideologies and is about class distinction.
"But, the thing is, while the lowly worker is improving his lot, the corporations are still making piles of money," the letter continued. "And the amount of money some of the drones on Caterpillar's dole make is obscene. They produce nothing. The only thing Caterpillar has to sell is produced by union members."
Many workers are also discussing the question of leadership of their union. Most workers interviewed were angry at the UAW tops' decision to end the strike without any consultation or discussion.
"The union leadership should keep people advised, not out there in the dark," said Smith.
"My frustration lies not with my immediate co- workers - union line crossers or temporary - nor with my local union. My frustration lies with the powers that be on the 7th floor of the G.O. and the international union in Detroit," said Vogelsang.
`We are the union'
More rank-and-file members taking responsibility for
the union, however, is what Vogelsang pointed to as the
way forward.
"I was not active in the union before," she said. "As most weren't. This needs to be changed." As the former strikers return on the job, Vogelsang said, "We need to find ways to talk to the new hires and temps. My dispute is not with the line crossers. When you start picking each other off you're going to have less people in your own army."
Others point to how the union has won some gains for workers over the years. "Steve always said, `The only thing Caterpillar ever gave me was a calendar - the rest I had to earn,' " said Carol Cordle, referring to her husband. "But now," Steve Cordle piped in, "they've given me an attitude. I'm never going to forget what this company has done."
What's going on now is another stage in the fight against Caterpillar, noted UAW member Heller. "When people fight for their rights, they're going to meet all kinds of walls in their battles. Sometimes you have to get together, regroup, and find another way to get over the wall. That's where we are at today."
Heller's determination to find a way to continue the struggle is marked by his confidence in the union membership.
He recounts a story of driving to a picket line rally last summer when he was pulled over by a state trooper for allegedly having a boat in the back of his truck that was two inches past the legal limit.
In the course of their interaction, the trooper told Heller he should just go stay at the union hall and let the elected union officials deal with the strike instead of him and others taking to the streets.
"I told him at the time, `I am the union,' " Heller said, "and I still feel that way today."
Angel Lariscy is a member of UAW Local 1494 in Peoria.