BY FRANK FORRESTAL AND TAMI PETERSON

JANESVILLE, Wisconsin - "We're glad to see the strike. The general feeling is that it's about time," said Dan Murray, a striking member of United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 95 at the General Motors truck assembly plant here. Murray said that line speed-up and the degradation of working conditions were key reasons for the strike. The GM Janesville plant, which makes the highly profitable Chevrolet Tahoe, GMC Yukon, and Suburban vehicles, employs 4,800 UAW members.

Autoworkers walked off the job October 29 after 44 negotiating sessions on local issues failed to produce an agreement. There was no special meeting of the local prior to the strike. Workers on the picket line reported that union officials approached them in the plant at about 5 p.m. and told them they were going out in one hour.

In Indianapolis at approximately the same time 2,700 workers at a GM stamping plant also went on strike. The Indianapolis plant supplies 75 percent of the stamped parts that go into GM light trucks. System-wide only a few union locals have reached local settlements. Two days later, GM sent home 2,250 workers at its Fort Wayne, Indiana, assembly plant, when it ran out of parts supplied by the Indianapolis facility.

From the beginning, the UAW officialdom has tried to keep the waters calm in light of the upcoming U.S. presidential elections. Up until very recently any talk of a strike has been pushed to the back burner.

However, in the face of GM demanding major concessions from the union and the recent 20-day Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) strike against GM, UAW president Stephen Yokich has been forced to okay local strikes at key plants.

The GM plant in Janesville hasn't been on strike since the 1970s and was one of the last plants to be shut down during the 17-day strike and lock-out that began in Dayton, Ohio earlier this year. The plant was idled for four and one-half days. According to the Wall Street Journal, "GM makes $10,000 a piece on the vehicles made in Janesville."

The two GM strikes come in the wake of the CAW strike, which ended October 23. Many of the strikers here had followed that strike closely.

Strikers understand that the issues involved in the Canadian strike, such as outsourcing and the selling off of parts plants, are similar to the ones they face. Some of the workers were inspired by the CAW strike and referred to the occupation of the GM plant in Oshawa, Ontario, by autoworkers a few weeks ago.

Although GM was successful in getting the CAW officialdom to back down on demands to prevent the sale of two parts plants in Oshawa and Windsor, the 20-day strike showed that unionists were willing to fight. This fact didn't go unnoticed by GM bosses and UAW officials. More important, it pointed to the kind of resistance GM will be running up against as the auto giant presses ahead with its drive to shore up profits.

It is no secret now that General Motors wants to sell off or close its parts division, Delphi Automotive Systems. The UAW wants the parts plants to be included in the contract's guarantee to maintain 95 percent of union jobs over the next three years while the head of GM's parts unit, J.T. Battenberg disagreed, "We can't stay in business where we aren't competitive," he declared.

GM wants to eliminate 45,000 jobs in order to compete with its rivals. To bring this about, GM is demanding that what it refers to as "troubled" plants be excluded from the minimum- employment provision hammered out by the Ford/UAW agreement.

In recent weeks more of the truth about the much-heralded Ford agreement is coming to the surface. According to the Wall Street Journal, "Ford's lead labor negotiator, Peter Pestillo, recently told analysts that the minimum-employment level excludes new hires and troubled businesses. Those two exceptions will allow Ford to reduce its UAW employment to 92,000 from 103,000. And when the 5% reduction is taken from the lower number, that leaves Ford with a minimum employment level of 87,000 UAW employees - a total reduction of 15%."

In addition, Ford now says it has three "troubled" plants and plans to outsource its seat, glass, and power-generation businesses.

The UAW has reached agreements with both Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler in the United States. The CAW has set a strike deadline of November 6 against Ford, one day after the U.S. presidential elections.

One of the highlights of the picket lines in Janesville are the new hires who joined in. Many strikers talked about the need to hire younger workers into the plant with the amount of retirement that has been taking place.

Two picketers who had only been working for a week and a half were enthusiastic about the strike. Jodie Loveland, 28 and a member of Local 95, explained, "The new hires are here because our jobs are on the line too."

Another new hire, 35-year-old Scott Kukuk, said, "I saw on the news last night that we were on strike, so I called up the union hall, went down there at eight this morning, and signed up for picket duty."

Frank Forrestal is a member of UAW Local 551, at Ford Motor Co. in Chicago. Tami Peterson is a member of the Young Socialists.  
 
 
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