Robert Boone, UAW 933, February 2015

This handbill from UAW 699 tells the fortune for laboring folks in this area

WANT TO SEE YOUR POSITION AS A WORKING PERSON IN THE NEXT 5 YEARS, READ THIS!

Highlighted comments are mine; the body of the text belongs to Gregg Shotwell shared from the net!

Live Bait and Ammo and UAW Local 699!!

It’s not just public sector workers and it’s not just Union workers either. There is a generalized offensive against all of us but no generalized response” imagine the once mighty UAW member earning $l2 an hour and no benefits. After the defeats suffered by auto workers with the cooperation of the UAW top brass, why wouldn’t the bosses come after the public sector. The heads of the public sector Unions are big on concession also. People losing homes, youth getting shot or facing a life of incarceration or the disenfranchisement that means, public services declining and Union workers nothing but low waged temporary workers. This means there is the potential for a generalized offensive out there it we bring it all together” We can’t look to the present Union officialdom whose Team Concept strategy means wages go down as Union dues go up; our Unions for them are nothing but employment agencies, a giant Manpower Inc.

by Gregg Shotwell

When UAW members at Local 699, the old Saginaw steering gear, now known as Nexteor, over whelming rejected a concession contract last summer, they had just cause” The new contract would not only create a third tier for new hires, it would provide health care for workers but not their families. The entire contract was downscale, but the treatment of temps and new hires was too cruel and unusual for a union conscience to bear.

The $5,000 signing bonus wasn’t worth the thirty pieces of silver, they wanted in exchange.

When the UAW International came back with an offer that included health care for every worker’s family and permanent status for any worker on his or her ninetieth day, the contract passed. At every contract information meeting, UAW officials emphasized that every worker who punched in on day ninety would be permanent. It was something to hang a union hat on.
“When they bonus us, in the end, we get boned”

Workers weren’t happy about making Steep concessions, but they could feel proud about standing up for temps and new hires.
Some Leaders do not value union integrity.

Last week, almost one year to the date that members of UAW Local 699 ratified the local contract which cut them out of the National Agreement and enabled them to be sold to a Chinese investor the Bargaining committee signed a MOU allowing the new owners to hire permanent temps for $12 an hour, with no benefits, and no commitment.
Maywood & Speedway dose this hit home, sold, and the concessions are greater.

The MOU allows the company to maintain 15 percent of the workforce in temporary status forever. We are sure the 15 percent will be increased as the management demands it. Not solidarity forever. Temporary, forever.
It may be legal, but it isn’t ethical, and it sure as hell isn’t union”

Permanent temps are the most dangerous oxymoron in our lexicon (Webster). If you think it makes sense, you’re ready for the Looney bin or a corner office at Solidarity House.

This MOU is anti-union to the core. These temp workers will pay UAW initiation fees and two hours of dues each month as a condition of employment, but they will never gain any benefit from union membership. It appears that the UAW international is doing everything in its power to guarantee that Michigan becomes a Right to Work state.
Old handbill the 2 hours dues is now 2.5 for our UAW members. Kind of disagree that they won’t gain any benefit from being a union member. Without the benefit of organized labor contracts, you are automatically a “EMPLOYEE AT WILL” and can be released for or without cause. Means when the boss tells you to kiss his a_ _ your only defense is “how long and how hard SIR.” And now Michigan is NOW a right to work state.

Permanent temps will surely gain by voting to make Michigan a Right to work state. They will be glad not to pay dues to a union that treats them in a like manner as the management, as second class citizens. The company may call them temporary but their impact on unions will be permanent.
Again the bill is a bit old, that prediction has all ready come true, and Michigan is a right to work state today. The brother is dead on target; his predictions have convinced me that he is using the old noggin for something other than to just hang a hat on!!! And for years shit has run down hill, we are seeing many of their concessions in all the IPS or supplier PARTS plants.

Plants Four and Five at Nexteer have been designated “Critical Status” on and off and on: again for the past three years. That means they have been working mandatory seven days a week. Understaffing is chronic. These new hires are not temporary in any civil or rational sense of the word. They should rightly become permanent UAW members with full benefits. Instead, they are being used and abused with the weak excuse that allowing permanent temps will prevent Alternative Work Schedules” it’s also a lie.

The fluffy language in the MOU mandating permanent temps does not forbid implementation of Alternative Work Schedules. For example: “All other options such as, but not limited to, . . . where necessary . . . to maximize uptime, should be used.” ln other words, you’re screwed. Management will change the contract whenever they feel like it. The MOU does state that all new work “could require the continued and exclusive use of temporaries.

What does our Chairman get out of it? He gets paid 12-16 hours a day, seven days a week, even when his feet are bare and his best asset is on a deck chair. It’s illegal, a crime and the UAW international is responsible for setting up this convenient bribery.
See the committee members (at least one of them) once a month. Sounds familiarly don’t it.

Maybe you don’t work in Saginaw. Maybe you think you can look the other way. lt has nothing to do with you. Bear in mind the same convenient legal crime is there for your Bargaining Chairperson. “There aren’t many workers who could turn down $150,000 plus a year” All he has to do is condemn a few hundred workers to poverty, put out his chest, and act like a hero.

The UAW International endorsed this treachery. They are setting standards that would make Judas cringe. What happens at Nexteer is the next tier coming to you at Ford, Chrysler, and GM. Traitors don’t ask permission, they confiscate it”

The new contract at the GM plant in Lake Orion which expanded second tier members from 20% to 40% conveniently didn’t required ratification by the affected members. What do you expect in turn? Democracy? Respect? Solidarity?

Some UAW members may think that this isn’t any of their business, that it hasn’t anything to do with them. Anyone who pays dues to the union has a right to vote on contracts including the tier members. When they get the opportunity, they will stab you in the side and we deserve it if we don’t aid/assist them. Nothing is temporary about the intentions of managers; they are setting the union up for another take down of us members.
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Again they don’t want to compete with their competitors; they much rather compete with Wal-Mart on workers’ wages and benefits, than manufactories of salable consumer goods…..

Workers who don’t protest injustices committed against fellow members are guilty of aiding and abetting the criminals (Managements and union officers that condone this stuff and turning our industrial workplaces into hugh Wal-Marts).

As an old codger I know that if we continue to turn off the voices of the oppressed (magic daters) at such times a ratifications they will turn off the old codgers, when their problem get aired.

As a worker you have just had your fortune told by Brother Gregg Shotwell. Capitalist strategies are to tear down the large manufacturing complexes to employees of less than 2,000 people and implement such things as no rights to strike, magic dater systems, elimination of rights and benefits; because when the UAW drops the wages and benefits they like wise go away in parts supplier industry in the same manner normally. THINK, in the 1970’s GM was the largest non-governmental employer in this country, and paid us the best wages, and we had the best benefits of almost any workers, WE SET THE PATTERNS. Who bumped GM from that number one spot, Wal-Mart, and with their managerial mentality they believe the workers caused them to lose that spot. Being the big powerful GM they know they can compete with Wal-Mart so all efforts are to leave the upcoming stock holders a very profitable operation with Wal-Mart benefits and Wages.

Our UAW constitution in article 19 section 3 states that NO Local Union Officer, International Officer or International Representative “shall have the authority to negotiate the terms of a contract or any supplement thereof with ANY employer without first obtaining approval of the local union. (The local union is not the elected Representatives; it’s the total membership.) Anyone making the lame excuses of; I didn’t know it was happening, and I don’t now agree with it, the Chairman did it, the international union did it, those excuses today fails to carry much weight with me. They all have to be a part of the concessions, in order to hide the results of them from the memberships.

Hardly any workers rights are not defined nor are they acquired by the law; they are acquired by struggles and protests of working folks. The law pulls the teeth from our contracts in the good old USA, and the managers buy backbones by the tons. And when workers show no support/fight for what’s happening to them the plan is completed. Remember history is our witness and justice will be our judge.

Old dad always said; believing the right to work laws is about work place freedom, is like calling a slave owner a JOB CREATOR.

Members no time to waste, we must travel back in time and give that “THEY CAN DO THAT” type REPS, dad a condom.

Reps should get the members they represent complaints from the horse’s mouth, not from the jackass managers that caused the problem.

I don’t do drugs or drink (very much) because at my age, I get the same effect from just lessoning to a couple of courses of “THEY CAN DO THAT.”