UAW Members Take Protest to the Auto Show

Meetings of the rank-and-file auto worker coalition called Soldiers of Solidarity (SOS) escalated January 8 with a protest at the North American Auto Show in Detroit. The purpose of the rally was to let nearly 7,000 media in attendance from around the world know that Delphi workers--along with Ford, Chrysler, GM and other union members--are going to stand in solidarity against corporate greed.

The failure of UAW leadership to provide a clear roadmap to recovery for embattled auto workers has gotten concerned rank-and-file members angry, vocal, and active. In preparing for the auto show rally, Flint Delphi workers encouraged fellow union members to join them. As a result, a bus with nearly 50 people came from Flint to join fellow Soldiers of Solidarity and other labor activists on Jefferson Avenue in front of Detroit's Cobo Hall, over 500 people strong.

For many members, this was the first time they attended a public demonstration to fight for their livelihood. Members were nervous and excited about having filled the bus without their local union leadership's full endorsement. (However, before the bus left the parking lot, the vice-president of UAW Local 651 handed out UAW buttons to the participants on the bus.)

In Detroit, handmade picket signs were unloaded along with portable sound equipment that would provide inspiration with chants and union songs. As the Flint delegation departed the bus, we were met by a 15-foot-tall Mother Jones puppet--a focal point during the rally--along with hundreds of workers from across the Midwest chanting, "GM, Delphi you should know--we won't be your PATCO."

FEELING OF SOLIDARITY

During the rally, rank-and-file members built friendships with others in different states and plants. The sidewalk turned into impromptu meeting spaces as workers compared notes and talked strategy. The "feeling of solidarity" that my old friend Victor Reuther used to describe in his stories of union activism spread throughout the rally that day.

SUPPORT LABOR NOTES

BECOME A MONTHLY DONOR

Give $10 a month or more and get our "Fight the Boss, Build the Union" T-shirt.

UAW Local 696 member Dan Lamb from the Dayton, Ohio Delphi factory joined the protest because he wanted people to know "the things that aren't in the papers." Lamb says that Delphi planned the bankruptcy and deceived investors.

SETTING THE TREND

Paul Wohlfarth, a worker at Chrysler Jeep in Toledo, carried a sign saying: "What happens to Delphi happens to GM, Ford, Toyota." Wohlfarth explained, "We're the ones that keep their wage scale up, because Toyota wants to keep the union out. Once they bust us, their [Toyota's] wage scales are going to go lower."

Workers also came from the Canadian Auto Workers, making this an international, multi-state, multi-union rally.

After returning to Flint, many of the activists joined in fellowship and began discussing our next demonstration in February to protest the elimination of Delphi spark plug production in Flint.

We agreed with what a passing bus driver told us during our protest, "Never let'em get away with it."

Dean Braid is a GM employee with UAW Local 599 in Flint, Michigan.