Auto Workers message to the students of California and the March 4th Movement

 Above: workers occupy the Fisher Body Plant in Flint 1937

To the students and workers of California and the March 4th movement:
As auto workers we know only too well what cut backs and attacks mean.  We have lost hundreds of thousands of jobs. Wages were cut in half. Health care benefits and pensions that our parents and grandparents struggled to achieve have been eliminated.  Lean production, the Toyota model  of manufacturing which promotes continuous, incremental increases in stress, has become the model for our society. Whether it's teachers and students, nurses and social workers, police and fire fighters, or cashiers competing with customers willing to scab in the self scan check out line, we are all subjected to the demand to do more with less, to work harder and longer for less, to study and sacrifice and persist for the promise that one day we will be rewarded with less so that the casino capitalists can sweep all the chips from the table tax exempt.

Bothers and sisters, it is not just about the money.They already have all the money. And they have plans for all the money you and I, and all working people will ever make in our lives. It's not about the money, it's about control. Control over the most basic components of our lives. Control over the most primary decisions we make about who and what and where and how we live. Human rights are not defined by law or contract or provost. Human rights our defined by struggle. We will win what we are willing to fight for. Nothing more.

We are soldiers in the struggle for solidarity as the premiere model of social interaction. We are committed to braking the sudden uncontrolled acceleration of attacks on students and the working class. We are committed to living our lives in solidarity, equality, peace, and the prosperity that an equitable system of distribution would mean for the vast majority of people.

The soldiers of solidarity support your struggle and look forward to strengthening ties between students, teachers, and all working people including those in the prison industrial complex.

In solidarity, Gregg Shotwell,retired UAW member and co-founder of soldiers of solidarity.