While The Great Recession and taxpayer lifeline to US automakers seems like a lifetime ago, many, especially in the UAW, can’t forget about the concessions workers were forced to make. One of the key sticking points, was the hiring of “temporary workers” at less than half the standard base pay, with virtually no benefits. Now these “temporary workers” can be on the job for upwards of 3-5 years with no road to becoming a fulltime employee. Another sore spot from 2009, is that GM has had consistently profitable quarters for years, and banked $35 billion in just the last three years alone. Their CEO, Mary Barra, lives high on the hog as most CEOs do, and took home almost $22 million, just last year! That’s 281 times the average GM worker.

The rest of the contract disagreements are the same ones we hear time and time again, but that by no means makes them unimportant: the company is looking to slash jobs (14,000 over two years by closing plants and moving production), and cut healthcare and benefit spending. In fact, during the strike, GM has actually cancelled their employees’ healthcare, and shifted it to the UAW. A striker out of Local 1005 in Ohio, had his son’s cancer treatment suspended without warning. What a way to make your workers feel valued! Hopefully the anger will just strengthen their resolve to “hold the fort.”

And the UAW isn’t completely blameless in this strike, either. A day before the “main” strike took place, around 850 Aramark employed, but UAW represented, janitors at several plants, hit the picket line. Not that it should matter, but it bares noting that the janitors here are crucial to a plant’s operation, cleaning machinery and equipment on assembly lines or in painting areas, easily risking bodily harm. But because there was no official word from UAW leadership or even the Locals, union members had to cross their own brothers’ and sisters’ picket! Thankfully not everyone did though, to quote Sean Crawford in Flint, “In my opinion, crossing the picket line makes you a scab. The picket line is sacred. That’s the meaning of solidarity.” At least there’s still some in the rank and file who know the deal. Solidarity is also being shown by the Teamsters, who are honoring the picket line, and refusing to transport any GM vehicles to dealers.

In an age of exponential automation and the shuttering of plants and factories in business’ favor of overseas exploitation, a strike such as this one might prove pivotal down the line (sources were estimating it to go 3-4 days before GM would really feel the pressure, losing $50 million a day…for comparison, the 2007 strike only lasted two days). Securing stable jobs with living wages and a retirement plan that *doesn’t* include poverty, is crucial right now. And no fortune teller was needed to tell you that Trump’s 2017 speech and the now-closed Youngstown, OH GM plant, promising to bring “all” manufacturing jobs back to the US, was never going to materialize in the slightest. The barbaric approach of nixing healthcare is also likely to have a lasting effect, especially while the Medicare For All debate is raging. Imagine living and working in this country in 2019, and being completely beholden to your boss in a life or death struggle, “get back to work or you or your family will die.” For the UAW’s sake, and for the sake of all workers toiling, we wish a speedy and victorious end to the strike!

Northern NJ IWW Endorses December 6th Climate Strike

Our union members have voted unanimously to endorse the Climate Strike on December 6th, 2019. We will strike alongside the North Jersey Climate Coalition in solidarity. United, our message will be amplified throughout Peter Francisco Park, throughout Newark, throughout the entire state of New Jersey.

We believe that we can abolish wage slavery while living in harmony with the Earth. We know that for workers to be able to organize they require the basic necessities of safe drinking water, clean air, and shelter from the ravages of climate change.

The 21st century calls for organized labor to unite with those fighting for a greener, sustainable planet. Labor unions cannot sit idly by as the world slips further into the grips of climate collapse and eco-fascism. We must take a grassroots, rank-and-file approach to saving our planet. The luxury of time on this imminent danger has long been spent. Those in labor who do not heed warning do so at the expense of our planet’s survival.

Genuflect At Amazon’s Altar? We Think not.

Amazon ain’t building a HQ in Long Island City, Queens. There seems to be some debate about whether this is a good or bad thing. Should we workers give a shit either way? One thing for sure is that Amazon and Jeff Bezos are not seeds of the new world. Despite Amazon’s reliance on and exploitation of supposed advancements in the latest technological trends it remains a planet killer and an enemy of the working class and all oppressed peoples of the world. In short, despite whatever convenience Amazon offers the masses to spend our hard earned money on a variety of consumer goods, some more essential, others frivolous, the world we seek will have no Amazon or pompous billionaires either. As a radical union, the IWW and our friends have a responsibility to dismantle capitalist’s systems of oppression and to begin to build a movement and structures that unite workers and all oppressed peoples. These non exploitive structures, movements and organizations can become the seeds of an equitable world. So maybe the question is not what we think about Amazon and Queens, but why we even allow Amazon to exist? While it’s true that they recently agreed to raise the wages of many of their employees to $15 an hour, let us not be deceived. Fifteen bucks an hour ain’t shit in the Twenty-first Century, and the working conditions in Amazon warehouses are still lousy. One thing that could help create better working conditions is making Amazon a union shop, and of course the company and Jeff Bezos will fight this with all their corporate might. Other than being crushed by workers’ revolution, the best thing that could happen at Amazon is if the workers join the IWW. We may not have the money that business unions have, but at least we believe that rank and file workers should be empowered and should run our union. Any Amazon worker reading this should contact your local branch of the IWW. Don’t worry, we know how to be discreet. We will work together with you to not only organize your workplace, but to build a union that is truly run by the workers and fights for the interest of the rank and file and not the interests of the union bosses and business unionism. If you’re not an Amazon worker than join us anyway as we and our General Defense Committee(GDC) continue to try and construct structures and organizations in the workplace and the community that can dismantle and replace the systems and organizations of the capitalist menace. We will fight together for a world without bosses and a world where workers and all oppressed peoples run society in our interest.

Solidarity with Federal Workers

We stand in solidarity and smack our fists in the air. We stand with the hundreds of thousands of federal workers locked out by the tweedledee and tweedledumb(Trump) political parties– the bosses’s political servants also called the demopublicans. This “budget crisis” is political theater. It is clear that virtually none of the opportunists in Washington give one little crap about workers and their families or the millions of people who are being left without important government services. But the government shutdown is no comedy. It threatens the safety of millions. The closure of essential agencies like OSHA and the FDA make everyday events like going to work and eating a risk.

We agree with the call for TSA workers to strike. A TSA strike would shutdown the airports and curtail the corporate oligarchs from business as usual. If TSA workers strike, the rest of the working class should join them. Why not a general strike to demand an end to the attacks on immigrants and healthcare for all and building a sustainable economy? The politicians from “both sides of the isle” will never muster the will or the courage to pass laws that their profit hungry corporate masters are against. There will be no Green New Deal without mass strikes and support in the streets by oppressed peoples throughout the USA. The LA teachers are leading the way. Federal workers and the rest of us should join them.

For a World Without Bosses,
Industrial Workers of The World,
Central NJ,
January 15, 2019