CINCINNATI — “The strikes today show more and more workers are fed up,” Gary Ringo, a bakery worker and member of Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Local 57, told the Militant Labor Forum here Sept. 25. The forum featured a panel of trade union officials and members promoting solidarity with the autoworkers strike and other labor battles taking place today.
Ringo described his efforts along with co-workers to build support for the strike by BCTGM Local 390G members at International Flavors and Fragrances in Memphis, Tennessee.
“We spread the word about their fight, collected donations and brought them to the strikers on the picket line in Memphis,” Ringo said. “The working class is constantly under attack by the bosses and owners — they try to pit us against each other in so many ways. We have to stand up together if we want to gain.” BCTGM members in Cincinnati raised $500 to take to the strike.
Earl Farris, BCTGM Local 57 business agent, who was part of the solidarity visit to the strike, also spoke. “Those folks are united,” Farris said. “They were prepared for this fight. They built solidarity among their membership well before the contract expired, and that’s what we need everywhere.”
BCTGM members have also brought solidarity to striking autoworkers. Ringo joined the United Auto Workers picket line at GM’s Cincinnati Parts Distribution Center in West Chester on the first day of their walkout.
“The biggest way they divide us is with the unequal pay. That’s why we’re fighting to end the tiers,” UAW Local 674 President Janet Billingsley, who is currently on strike at the distribution center, told the forum, attended by 18 people. “The strike is a training ground for the new workers.” She described how over the past decades workers have been forced to move from plant to plant because of layoffs and shutdowns by the Big Three.
Kimberly Gray, an alternate UAW Local 674 shop steward, said new workers start at $17 an hour. “The company takes advantage of the 90-day probation and runs them from one end of the plant to the other. They don’t care if you get hurt. I tell the new young workers, ‘Don’t let them make you do $94 worth of work for $17!’” Gray said. “That’s why we have the union.”
“Solidarity is not just a kind, warm gesture. It’s the key ingredient for working people to be able to fight and win,” said Kaitlin Estill, another member of BCTGM Local 57 who took part in the solidarity trip to Memphis. Estill is also the Socialist Workers Party candidate for Cincinnati City Council.