NUMMI workers get nothing new from Labor officials and Democrats

The event at UAW 2244's hall today was clearly an effort on the part of the trade Union leaders from the Alameda County area to counter what they consider a negative image created by the melee at the January meeting that ended up on You Tube and this blog.  UAW 2244 represents the workers at the NUMMI plant in Fremont that was a joint project of Toyota and GM.  GM Pulled out and Toyota is planning to close the plant with the loss of almost 5000 jobs.

There were maybe 400 people there but I would guess that at least a third of them were Union officials and Democratic Party politicians. AFL-CIO president, Richard Trumka addressed the crowd by video unable to attend due to the blizzard back east.  Art Pulaski, head of the California Labor Federation was introduced first and gave the same speech most Unionists have heard time and time again, that he represents two and a half million workers in the state of California and they are behind us all the way etc etc.  The head of the Alameda Central Labor Council Sharon Cornu made the same remarks about the 60,000 or so workers that she represents.  Unfortunately, these thousands of workers have no idea who these people are and certainly are not aware that they are "behind" anyone.

I spoke to a number of workers outside and inside the hall.  Most of them I talked to did not want to be filmed but they pretty much all had the same answer when I asked them about the scene at January's meeting.  They said that there is a lot of anger at the Union leadership because they never hear from them.  They hear about them being in Fort Lauderdale and Florida I think one guy said and yet then don't share with the members what is going on.  "Then when they do call a meeting to explain it to us, people are so mad already it just breaks down; "there just isn't a great deal of trust in them" one woman tells me.   A couple of guys told me they wanted  a chance to vote on the offer being made by Toyota and that was what angered them but from most of the folks I talked to they just felt that they're ignored.

One guy told me that the anger at the officials in the plant is quite high which is why a lot of the folks never came to the event.  He said that the Union has offices in the plant but they pulled out and they never see them.  I couldn't confirm this.

We write on the blog all the time about how the top Union officials together with their friends in the Democratic Party collaborate to keep rank and file Union members and all workers down, to temper the anger and hatred they feel inside at what is happening to them.  The hall was full of these politicians.  Bill Lockyer, the California state treasurer was there as was Alberto Torrico, the Majority Leader in the California State Assembly.  Then there were a whole host of lesser Democratic figures all there to ensure workers channel their anger through their party apparatus.  This was a classic scene, capitalist politicians and top Labor officials working in harmony to ensure working people don't organize our independent power and use it to drive back the offensive of capital.  All the politicians at the head of the meeting have cooperated in one way or another with Schwarzenegger in getting a budget passed that is shifting the burden of their economic crisis on to our shoulders.

When I raised the call for a strike on March 4th by students no one had heard about it.  They had seen the occupations and scenes on TV and stuff but nothing about a strike.  "If we all stuck together we'd have some real power" says one NUMMI member.  For the serious rank and filers that I spoke to in there they weren't impressed by the speeches, we have heard them so many times. I recall at the Greyhound strike in 1980 and so many subsequent struggles, top Union officials talking about their "line in the sand" and "being out hear one day longer than it takes." But the line in the sand keeps moving backwards and workers end up losing their homes when they're out for months and even years.  Of course for these top officials there is no fear of them losing their homes.

It seems the huge campaign they are initiating is a campaign to pessure Toyota to keep the plant open. The plan is to have pickets and protests at Toyota dealerships. Apparently more Toyota's are sold in Northern California than anywhere else in the US.

What was somewhat disturbing was the complete absence of any criticism of GM, a partner with Toyota at NUMMI.  It stunk of nationalism to me and I remember back in the 1980's when the Japanese were attacked for taking our jobs and there was a strong mood of protectionim and nationalism which always has a racist bent to it in the last analysis.  I remember a young Chinese man, Vincent Chin I think his name was.  he was beaten to death in Detroit by people whom thought he was Japanese.

I couldn't stay till the end and it was pretty nauseating, completely uninspiring. Perhaps they mentioned GM but I doubt it. Perhaps they mentioned the student strike and  whether or not we should join them, but I think not. I am sure they never raised the issue of the workers taking over the plant, or even the government taking over the plant that some big business economists have raised with regard to the banks on occasion.  This was a carefully choreographed event to let off a little steam and ensure that the anger that exists within the ranks of the Labor movement and US society as a whole is kept under control and not allowed to break out in to a generalized offensive against the bosses, their political parties, and at some point the system itself.