BY DAN FEIN AND FLOYD FOWLER
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina - Members of United Steelworkers of
America Local 850 entered the third month of their strike
against Continental General Tire Co. "More united than ever,"
was how Jimmy Carpenter, one of the pickets on duty November
20, put it in an interview with Militant reporters, describing
the morale of the strikers.
Pickets and union officials all said only six or seven strikers have crossed the line and returned to work, none of them union members. Despite a state "right-to-work" law, all but a handful of the 1,450 workers belong to the union. These laws prevent a "closed shop," allowing the bosses to pressure workers into not joining the union in a workplace that's organized.
In the wake of a well-attended solidarity rally November 5, the company sent out video cassettes and letters to strikers homes in an unsuccessful attempt to generate pressure to return to work.
"After we got the letter my wife Lisa called the plant and spoke to the man they said for us to call, asking all kinds of questions," said Ralph Bryant. "Of course he couldn't answer her. Then I took her to the union hall and they were able to. That was the deciding factor for her to join in and give me all of her support."
Between 500 and 600 strikers had a video tape smashing party on the street in front of the plant November 14. "She got to smash one too," Bryant said, referring to his wife, "to show how she felt about the company."
The company then publicly announced that the last day any striker could return to work was November 17, after which they would be permanently replaced. The evening of that day, as the last minutes of the company offer ticked away, several hundred strikers who had gathered at the plant gate staged a mock "return to work" action. But they stopped with much fanfare at the General Tire property line. "It was like a New Year's eve countdown," said H.O. Burns with a smile. "It was our way of rejecting that company letter. It'll be a cold day in hell before they break this strike."
Continental General claims to be producing 10,000 tires a day. The company has hired 250 scabs and says they will hire another 85 each week. Before the strike the plant produced 33,000 tires a day.
"They've got management and office people doing production," said Burns, who has 17 years in the plant. "And a number of them have quit." While Militant reporters were here, a maintenance foreman some of the workers knew stopped at the picket line to say he had quit over unsafe working conditions and to wish them well.
Among the main issues in the strike is a decent pension at retirement. Many workers have more than 15 years in the plant. The union is fighting for $41 a month per year of service for retirees.
John Massey is a veteran of the 1994-95 strike at Pirelli- Armstrong in Nashville, Tennessee. When the plant closed in November '96 he moved to Charlotte to work at Continental General. "The company expected from 250 to 500 strikers to cross last Tuesday, but were disappointed," Massey said. "For the first time in weeks the company didn't run ads for scabs in last Sunday's paper. We've turned around potential scabs here at the picket line." He figures the company is losing $1 million a day.
Another worker passed around an Internet news story about Continental AG, parent company of Continental General Tire, purchasing a tire plant in South Africa just the past week.
"We're definitely more unified now," said USWA Local 850 executive board member Willy Gray. "We gave concessions in '95 and after the settlement this new corporate office building went up. They have money to buy other companies, and they want us to accept lower wages."
By the 4:00 p.m. shift change, more strikers were gathered at the gate, using a bullhorn to make clear to the scabs entering and leaving the plant what they thought of them.
At the union hall, about 60 workers were picking up strike pay, reading the latest union newsletter, and discussing the strike. The company had agreed to meet with union representatives and the federal mediator the next day. No one we talked to expected much to come of that meeting.
Several unionists said that workers fighting to bring in the union at Continental General's nonunion plant in Mt. Vernon, Illinois, collected $2,125 and brought it to the union in Charlotte to show their support.
At the union hall Militant reporters met William, one of the many new hires on probation who walked out along with the rest of the workers September 17. He asked to be identified only with his first name. "I can't go along with more concessions," he said. "I was born union. My father was a miner in United Mine Workers of America Local 513 in West Virginia. When I took this job the company man told us there might be a strike. I told him then that I was pro-union. I won't cross anyone's picket line, least of all my own."
Dan Fein is a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1996 in Atlanta.