The workers are members of CAW Local 127. In face of the company’s strike-breaking drive, up to 700 auto workers from Navistar and other auto plants in the area have reinforced picket lines to block busloads of "replacement workers" from entering the plant. On the morning of June 20 a bus was steered away from the plant before it could reach the gates.

The workers walked off the job June 1 to fight company demands for major concessions. These include a $6 an hour wage cut for production workers, a $4 an hour cut for the skilled trades, a hike in the cost of benefits, cuts in vacation time for those with more than three years seniority, and a lengthening of the workweek for some from 39 hours to a compulsory 56 hours.

The workers walked out despite the company’s threat to close the facility and move the work to its plant in Escobedo, Mexico, unless they accept cost-cutting measures totaling $28 million. The bosses made these demands in April when contract negotiations began.

In June the company said it had found $14 million and demanded concessions from the workers for the other $14 million. Under the terms of the former contract, which expired June 1, the company had to give the workers a year’s notice before closing the Chatham site. Company officials stated that with no contract the terms no longer apply and that "we could close the plant any time."

At peak production in 1999 the plant employed 2,500 people and the workers produced 129 trucks a day. A smaller workforce now puts out 39 trucks a day on the assembly line.

Three weeks into the strike the company announced it was trying to restart production and claimed that supervisors and other bosses had produced eight trucks. A June 19 Navistar press release announced Navistar’s intention to break the strike with scabs.

"To meet the needs of our customers, therefore, we need to activate another element of our contingency plan, which is to resume production at Chatham now, using temporary workers," stated Steve Keate, president of the truck group of the parent company, International Truck and Engine Corporation. The company said it is working closely with local authorities on its plans to bring in scabs. In 1995 the Ontario Conservative government legalized the use of scabs.

"This is the first real test of the scab legislation at an assembly plant," Joe McCabe told the Militant. "It is a challenge to the CAW and the entire labor movement." McCabe reported that Navistar had hired Strom of Canada well before the end of the Chatham contract. The outfit is part of Strom Engineering, a scab hiring hall in the United States. It set up shop in a hotel room in Windsor. It now has moved to permanent office facilities there.

Support is building for the strikers. "The incredible solidarity of our CAW locals in Chatham, Windsor, and London, as well as locals from southwest Ontario, have prevented the scabs from getting into the plant so far," said a June 21 CAW Navistar Solidarity Alert. "All CAW members are asked to be on FULL ALERT on a moment’s notice with the signal from your local union leadership to leave your workplace and head by car or bus to Navistar in Chatham," stated the newsletter.

Other unions are also coming into the fight. The United Food and Commercial Workers has offered to supply the strikers with hamburgers and hot dogs for rallies and other needs.

As we go to press, one picket was critically injured when three strikers were run over by a van driven by a security goon hired by the Navistar bosses. See link below for more information.
 
 
Related article:
Navistar security goon drives van into strikers, injuring three  
 
 
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