January 12, 2009 - UAW Protest Detroit Auto Show, Detroit MI

Union Workers Protest Outside Auto Show

UAW Outside Detroit Auto Show

GM Workers Inside Detroit Auto Show

Shortly after General Motors held a pep rally during its new-car rollout on Sunday, about 300 auto workers and labor activists rallied across from the site of the auto show here, protesting against possible United Automobile Workers union concessions.

Bargainers from U.A.W. locals nationwide are in town to prepare for talks with G.M., Ford and Chrysler, feeling heat from Congress to pare labor costs in exchange for some $17.4 billion in federal loans. Negotiations with G.M. are scheduled to begin on Jan. 12.

“We’re already at the point where new hires won’t be able to afford the cars they build,” said Ron Lare, a former executive board member of U.A.W. Local 600 and one of the protest’s organizers.

Demonstrators carried signs that said We Earned Our Keep, No More Concessions and Stop the Corporate Greed as they circled the snowy sidewalk in subfreezing temperatures, sometimes chanting, “You say Wall Street, we say Main Street.” One participant waved a large American flag.

“I could be home watching TV with my feet up, but this is serious,” said Pam Powell, a production worker at Ford’s plant in Rawsonville, Mich., for 16 years. “A lot of us are going to lose our homes. Let the people know that we’re not taking any more concessions.”

Added Steve Waskul, a forklift driver at Chrysler’s truck assembly plant in suburban Warren: “I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that they are going to ask for more givebacks, when we did that in ‘03, ‘05, ‘07 and ‘08.

“Even if it means I lose my job, I’m voting no. Enough is enough.”

Mr. Waskul, who has been a Chrysler worker for 12 years, said Ron Gettelfinger, president of the U.A.W., is in a difficult position. “He’s walking a razor’s edge,” Mr. Waskul said.

Ms. Powell empathized with manufacturers — to a point. “Mr. Mulally has a very tough job, too,” she said, referring to Ford’s chief executive, Alan Mulally. “But he won’t lose his home.”

Brian Moore, a worker for G.M. in nearby Pontiac, said that the conception of U.A.W. workers as blue collar workers with white collar paychecks is simply not true. “As for wages, I’ve never gotten a paycheck that said $77 an hour,” he said. “I wish I had that, but that’s not reality.”

Mr. Moore said that he gets closer to $30 an hour, and the rest is benefits.

“That’s not a welfare check to me,” Mr. Moore said. “I pay into my benefits. We work eight hours or more a day, on a job, to build vehicles and earn those wages and benefits. We earn that stuff.”

Tiffany Ten Eyck, a community activist and one of the event’s organizers, said the nation’s middle class will suffer if auto workers are forced into more givebacks. “It will drive down manufacturing wages everywhere, and that can’t be good for the economy,” she said.

“The auto workers set the standard.”

Original Story - New York Times