BY RAY PARSONS
DES MOINES, Iowa - Maurice Taylor, Jr., the president and
chief executive officer of Titan International, spoke at Culver-
Stockton College in Canton, Missouri, November 10. Some 150
students along with a number well-to-do admirers of Taylor
attended.
His presence did not go unchallenged. Ten members and supporters of United Steelworkers of America (USWA) Local 164 were there, and the unionists distributed a union flyer entitled, "Why we are on strike" to nearly everyone in the audience.
Local 164 has been on strike against Titan Tire in Des Moines since May 1 in a fight against intolerable overtime work and two-tier wages, and for restoration of pension and medical care benefits for retirees. In September, USWA Local 303L in Natchez, Mississippi, joined the walkout. As part of its purchase of the bankrupt Fidelity Tire Manufacturing Co., Titan is seeking deep concessions from Local 303L similar to what was imposed on the Des Moines workers three years ago.
In the course of the USWA fight, Taylor has become notorious throughout Iowa, Mississippi, and beyond for his vicious, anti-working-class statements. As Local 164 began their strike, Taylor raged in the media, "They're stupid! They're stupid! If they think walking out is going to change anything, they're nuts! Every one of their wives should smash them over the head with a frying pan!"
During the Culver-Stockton talk, Taylor outlined a right- wing political agenda aimed against the working class as a whole, in the United States and around the world. He said, "The politicians are fine people, but how many know how to manage?... Business people are the most capable of running the government." While going on at length about his management skills, Taylor also noted he bought the Titan business from a "Jewish Orthodox Canadian." Taylor was one of the candidates running for the Republican Party's presidential nomination in the 1996 U.S. elections.
He called for restoring "law and order" in Russia, and declared, "Europe is all screwed up. They have high unemployment, and the politicians there have no backbone. They have to say [to workers] you can't have all this free stuff."
Strikers get out word about their fight
The team of unionists handbilling at Stockton-Culver College
was made up of Local 164 strikers from Des Moines; several more
who are full-time volunteers in the USWA organizing drive at
the Taylor's nonunion wheel plant in Quincy, Illinois; two
members of USWA Local 310 who work at Bridgestone/Firestone in
Des Moines; and an Iowa State University student who organized
a meeting in support of the strike on his campus the week
before.
The strikers made an impression on the students at the small private college. The first question after Taylor's lecture came from a student who asked, "How do you respond to the unfair labor charges of the strikers outside this meeting?" Another student asked how workers are supposed to get from big business what is rightfully theirs, but Taylor responded without answering the question.
"We got positive feedback from people coming out," said Mike Mathis, a Local 164 striker who's been on the Quincy organizing team two months. "They had a better understanding of what we're about."
Before the program began, one student, thinking the team of leafletters was a sort of picket line, took a flyer and said, "I support the strike. I wouldn't cross you but I'm required to go."
Other students explained to Militant reporters that the meeting was made a course requirement.
Ray Parsons is a member of USWA Local 310 in Des Moines.