The American Axle workers led the way by fighting back against a profitable company. AAM had the full backing of GM and other Wall Street vultures, and a media blitz that constantly hammered the lie that concessions were necessary to save the company.

Many workers rejected the pressure and fought to the end for a decent contract. The vote totals showed almost 25 percent of workers at UAW Local 235 rejected the contract, as did about 10-20 percent of workers at the other locals.

One critical lesson of the strike was the leadership displayed by the Black workers. The picket lines were strong during the winter-long, three-month strike. Unity with white workers and members from other locals and communities and progressive organizations from around the world was solid.

Food and money poured in to aid the workers and their families who were trying to make it on a paltry $200 a week strike pay. Meanwhile the Gettelfinger leadership was sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars in the strike fund.

Unprecedented Concessions

The tentative contract agreement is unprecedented. For the first time in this wave of concessionary contracts, there are huge wage cuts to high seniority UAW members in the auto industry. There are wage cuts for skilled trades. Finally, these concessions are at a company that has been profitable quarter after quarter. Among other things, the contract says:

• Wages will be slashed on average $10 outright for current workers and wages would be at different scales between plants. At Detroit Gear, production workers will range from $14.35 to $18.50 per hour, at Cheektowaga $14.35 to $16.50 and at Three Rivers $10 to $18;
• New hires in Detroit will start at $11.50 with no cost-of-living adjustments for the life of the contract and no dental coverage for the first three years of the contract;
• The closing of the Detroit Forge and Tonawanda, N.Y., plants will take place within the next year;
• Pensions will be frozen as of January 2009 and the implementation of a 401K plan will begin at that time;
• Skilled trades will be combined into only four classifications along with a reduction of their hourly wage;
• Overtime now kicks in only after a 40-hour week, not an 8-hour day;

Without worker resistance, AAM and other Wall Street predators will intensify their assault on the auto industry and beyond, to gut contracts and smash wages for union and nonunion workers, even as inflation and the cost of living skyrockets.

A Deadly Ideology

The leadership of UAW President Ron Gettelfinger pushed for a concessionary contract even before the strike began. Under pressure from the ranks, the leadership

called for a massive solidarity demonstration on April 18. It was suddenly cancelled two days before. The UAW wanted to ‘prove its reasonableness’ to AAM management.

With 30 General Motors Corp. plants idled because of the AAM strike, two local unions trying to resolve local agreements also struck against GM. The fighting spirit of tens of thousands of UAW and other union rank-and-file members internationally, as well as their community supporters, wasn’t sufficiently shared by the UAW International to fight American Axle.

For example, the union could have closed the plants to stop all parts from shipping with mass picketing; they could have urged workers to “work to rule” in the plants receiving scab parts.

They could have shut down all of GM, including plants selling small cars. They could have shutdown all the car companies in the U.S. and called on other unions to shut down production, too.

The tactics and strategy of the International leadership flow from its deadly ideology. Kevin Donovan, UAW Region 9 Assistant Director, reflects the orientation of the Gettelfinger strategy to help management become more “market-competitive.”

In approving this tentative agreement, “We put ourselves in a very good competitive position with this contract to bid on future work at Cheektowaga,” said Donovan in the May 20 edition of Business First.

American Axle CEO Richard Dauch and his Wall Street backers are laughing all the way to the bank. Initial reports claim American Axle will “save” (in other words, steal) a minimum $185 million from the workers, their loved ones and their communities during the life of the 2008-2012 contract.

The courageous workers at AAM were led to a concessionary contract by a UAW International leadership that sees only one way to respond to demands for concessions: adjusting and conciliating.

The AAM strike and history show clearly that union leadership with a “market-competitive” labor-management ideology will never be able to fight the barons of industry and their bankers effectively, much less lead workers to victory. Time and again, this kind of opportunistic business union, top-down “leadership” has sold out the workers and dampened or co-opted their struggle.

Strike Weapons Need Sharpening

The workers’ action at AAM showed the potential power of strikes. Over the duration of the strike, 30 GM plants were idled and the corporation lost at least $2 billion in idled plant production and lost sales. AAM lost millions and both companies suffered big-time stock market losses.

But, to be effective, the strike weapon today needs to incorporate a political strategy that raises class consciousness; the understanding that conditions under capitalism are not just the result of downsizing, restructuring and off-shoring, but driven relentlessly by competition.

There is no economic struggle that doesn’t become political. Competition is global. Under present-day capitalism, competition is deeply embedded in the drive for profits and investment to increase production and lower labor costs. Expand or die is the nature of capital. Workers in the richer countries are being pitted globally against workers in the poorer countries in a race to the bottom.

Lacking is the necessary class consciousness and the ability to restructure and democratize the international unions and use this qualitative advance for the kind of action that the times call for.

More than at any time in history, change in the policy of unions is a life and death question. To be victorious, the change has to come from below, from the multinational workers, organized and unorganized. True leadership must be thoroughly independent, politically anti-capitalist, militant, internationalist and ready to struggle.

In the AAM strike, the auto barons played workers of different plants against each other, leading to the concessionary contract. This tactic has occurred so often it has its own name -- “whipsawing.” Without the knowledge of how to deal with this tactic, the workers were forced between a rock and a hard place. The majority of workers, unable to see a clear road forward, voted for the contract, but many did want to keep fighting.

Despite the horrendous, precedent-setting UAW-AAM contract, hope can be found in the heroism of the workers and their valiant fight, which drew strong support from labor-community-student allies internationally [See Issue 27 of Critical Moment].

‘We’re still fighting!’

The conditions in the plants after the strike are brutal. Management is on the offensive in an effort to get senior workers out of the plant and replace them with new hires at the lower wage.

Workers are being written up and harassed. There are harsh new policies: no smoking, not even in your car; no talking to coworkers; no sitting on benches. Nevertheless, the workers fighting spirit goes on. This was evident at a June 14 tribute to the strikers at the UAW Local 235 union hall in Hamtramck, sponsored by the American Axle strike support committee.

Sylvia Moore, an African American skilled tradeswoman at American Axle and member of Local 235 in Detroit, thanked supporters for their unity and solidarity while chairing the tribute.

Other members of Local 235 who spoke were outgoing African American President Adrian R. King and Ada Walker, who was arrested during the strike. They all received standing ovations for their courageous and heroic strike actions and the inspiration they gave to workers internationally.

Supporters from dozens of unions, churches, and student organizations packed the union hall for the tribute.

The YMCA choir and others performed. A delicious meal was provided by the IWW’s Wobbly Kitchen and Food Not Bombs. Statements of support included one from the Brazilian Metal Workers Union.

Walker summed up the spirit of the day: “We’re still fighting. We’re not giving up.”

Bio:
Milt Neidenberg contributed to this article.

An adequate assessment of just one pre­sentation will be difficult; to express how powerful and moving the entire conference was will be even harder.
Most impressive was the wide-ranging scope of the program. Tracks (or areas) covered in­cluded Youth Media, Popular Education, How-To, INCITE! Women of Color/Trans People of Color, Media Policy, and the Kids’ Track.
The organizers were dedicated to represent­ing grassroots media and everything that encom­passes, including low-watt radio, zine-making, street art (graffiti, stencils, wheatpastes, chalking), etc.

Media outlets, organizations and collectives from across the U.S. were represented, including: The Empowered Fe Fes from Chicago, a support and action group of young women with disabilities, ages 13-24; People’s Production House, a media justice organization in New York; the Center for International Media, also from New York; 2-Cent Entertainment, a multi-media collective from New Orleans; and The Pocho Research Society, a Los-Angeles based collective of artists and activists.

It was a massive collaboration of ideas and strategies focused and invested in making media ac­cessible. No idea was too big, or felt out of reach, and no idea was too small or insignificant.
On Saturday, Adele attended the panel “Undoing Crime: Media to De-criminalize and De-colonize.” Journalists on the panel spoke about the sensational, class-based and racist coverage of crime typical of corporate media, and of their efforts to tell the real story about crime in the U.S., and also sto­ries about communities organizing to create new en­vironments and opportunities in high-crime areas.

The media’s spin on a story affects how we feel and whether we choose to mobilize. The corpo­rate media reports crime in a way that is immobiliz­ing, stokes fear, and seeks to restrict our actions.

As journalists and activists, it must be our purpose and mission to create and produce media that mobilizes people, holds others accountable, and is an ongoing, positive presence in our communities.

On Sunday, we gathered to watch a live U.S./Palestine video conference between activists here and in the Occupied Territories. This incredibly touch­ing discussion brought to light our common understanding and common struggles. Even across borders, we share the same vision, goals, and as one woman from Palestine noted, the same oppressors.

Everyone left the video conference empowered and unified; a feeling that ran through the weekend which brought people into each others’ lives and homes to work, dialogue, and build solutions.

Grace Lee Boggs, the renowned and revered Detroit activist, delivered the conference’s closing remarks. Wearing a t-shirt with her face on it, which she got from Invincible’s record release party and her 93rd birthday celebration the week prior, she paralleled the organizing ideas of young radi­cals in the 1960s to the AMC participants.

Young activists today, she said, focus on “what we can do,” rather than defining ourselves by oppression. Many meetings following the assassination of MLK were led by men giving fiery speeches, Grace recalled.

They often only succeeded in instigating more anger, and the people they mobilized became a faceless mass. Now, at the AMC, Grace observed women and proud queers at the forefront, and a movement that understands the importance of diversity and individual contributions.

Today’s young activists have learned valuable lessons from the past, she noted, and are working to create a concept of evolution based on love and care. Consequently, many in­dependent media projects are practicing a gradual revolution that brings new ideas, institutions and energy.

As an elder with 60 years of experience in grassroots activism, Grace encouraged the crowd to continue to find the power within us to maintain Detroit as a city of hope and transform our communities and countries.

The AMC also engaged the community surrounding the conference. Tours of Detroit were organized highlighting independent media, music, labor history, environmental justice, and urban agri­culture.

Clara chose the labor history tour. Labor ac­tivists Ron Lare and Rich Feldman spoke in front of UAW Local 600 outside the Dearborn Ford Riv­er Rouge Plant. They told the participants about a hunger march in 1932 on Miller Road where about three thousand unemployed workers, their families, and union activists were met by the Dearborn police, who fired on the crowd and killed five.

They also learned about the “Battle of the Overpass” where Walter Reuther and others were at­tacked and badly beaten by the Detroit Police and Ford’s “Service Department” goons for passing out pamphlets on the Miller Road overpass. “Old Harry Benet’s [the head of Ford’s Service Department] boys don’t like no union noise,” one tour participant sang while we listened to the story. The group then visited the empty shell of the Packard Plant in Ham­tramck.
The tour guide, Clara recalled, said a Mexi­can woman and UAW activist had commented that what the U.S. needs is more immigration so work­ers can learn the concepts of revolution from Latin America. “That was probably one of the best things I heard on the tour,” Clara said.

On Tuesday, Adele had breakfast with a number of women of color from the SPEAK! Col­lective, and everyone agreed this was the only con­ference they’d ever attended that felt like home.

There was never a question of belonging, nor was there a need to reference one’s resume in order to feel part of an exclusive network. “We wondered if ‘conference’ was the right word for the AMC,” Adele recalled. “But we realized it is exactly the right word.” The energy of the AMC was so unique that it has raised the standard for what a conference should be, and what others should aspire to achieve.

Yes, it was that good.

*****
Please visit the Allied Media Conference web­site for a more thorough overview of the tracks, presen­tations, and issues covered: http://alliedmediaconference.org