Solidarity Defends a Fellow Worker

Management often goes after workers who appear to be weak or disadvantaged. Gregg Shotwell, who works at a Delphi auto parts plant in Coopersville, Michigan, tells how members protected one of their own...

Management often goes after workers who appear to be weak or disadvantaged. Gregg Shotwell, who works at a Delphi auto parts plant in Coopersville, Michigan, tells how members protected one of their own.

“There was a woman in our department who had attention deficit disorder,” says Shotwell. “It made it difficult for her to learn new tasks. She was often late. She was a thorn in management's side.”

The supervisor monitored this worker--we'll call her Rosie--with constant questioning and criticism, which heightened her learning disability.

“She picked on Rosie because she was less able to defend herself,” says Shotwell. “It was cruel.”

Rosie wasn't the most popular worker. Shotwell admits that she often got on other workers’ nerves, but, he says, “we could clearly see that she was being mistreated by this supervisor, ‘the Terminator.’”

A few weeks before Christmas, the Terminator accused Rosie of running scrap and fired her.

She then told Shotwell to run Rosie's machine. “I immediately shut it off and refused to run it,” Shotwell says. “The Terminator told me that I had to run it.

“I told her, ‘This machine is running scrap. I'm not going to get fired too.’ She insisted that I run it. I said, ‘I want an AVO' --that stands for ‘avoid verbal orders.’ In other words, I wanted her to put it in writing. She said, ‘I don't give AVOs, I give direct orders.’

“That put the ball in my court. ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I will run scrap under direct order, but get my committeeman [steward], because I have to get it documented that you ordered me to run a machine that is producing scrap.’”

Then Shotwell proceeded to run the machine as ordered. Sure enough, the machine produced scrap. When the committeeman came, Shotwell showed him examples and got it documented that the supervisor had ordered him to keep operating.

INSIST ON QUALITY

“All companies have quality programs,” Shotwell advises. “In our Quality Network, an employee can document a quality problem to the committeeman and the quality rep through a ‘Document 40.’ They then consult with the supervisor.

“If it’s not resolved, it then goes to the general supervisor, and then to a union-management committee which includes the plant manager and the bargaining chair. Eventually it goes all the way up the corporate ladder.

“This process creates a paper trail, and management is afraid of documentation. Since the quality problem couldn't be resolved without the involvement of production workers, job setters, and the trades, we had control. It rapidly became evident that this Doc 40 was going all the way to the top.”

The quality problem became contagious. Soon other workers experienced problems with their machines as well. Job setters who were usually quite skilled at making appropriate adjustments and small repairs appeared stumped. So they called out skilled trades. “We explained to tradespeople what was happening. Nothing got fixed,” says Shotwell. “Production slowed to a trickle.”

ON VACATION, NOT FIRED

Rosie's co-workers weren't satisfied, though.

“The second thing we did,” says Shotwell, “was take up a collection for Rosie. We wanted management to know that she's not fired, she's on vacation. She's going to be paid one way or another.”

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Then they demanded a meeting with the general foreman, who said he would meet with one or two workers. Management, Shotwell notes, doesn't like to be outnumbered. “We decided, we're all going in.”

They packed the conference room, overwhelming the four managers, who were well aware that as long as the workers were in the conference room, there was no production in the department.

Management had not expected such a strong reaction, thinking that Rosie was an easy target. Workers took turns relating the incidents of harassment they had witnessed and the chronic problems with quality that management ignored: “Firing Rosie doesn't change a thing.” “It doesn't solve the poor quality problems.” “She's a scapegoat, not a solution.”

“We let them know we would pursue the Doc 40 all the way to the top of the corporation,” says Shotwell.

CIVIL RIGHTS INVESTIGATION

Then people from the department went to the union meeting, including a lot of folks who didn't usually attend. The union reps were reluctant to defend Rosie because, in their eyes, she was a chronic problem. But her co-workers demanded a civil rights investigation for harassment. There were too many vocal members for the bargaining chair not to respond.

The civil rights chairman, Rick Majors, understood. Majors took every person in the department off the floor into a private room and interviewed them--every worker, engineer, supervisor, anybody who had anything to do with the department. “We workers talked, and talked, and talked. We ate up time like popcorn,” Shotwell says.

Production suffered. “We were getting a lot of attention, the whole plant was buzzing.” Management was showing a great deal of anxiety.

Union members also refused overtime. The Christmas shutdown was approaching, the company needed the parts, and members were saying, “No, if you can afford to fire somebody, then you must not need the parts very bad.” Many people who usually liked overtime before Christmas made a sacrifice.

Workers took up a collection to buy t-shirts that said “Stop Harassment,” and on the back, “An injury to one is an injury to all.”

VICTORY

Shotwell says, “Because there was so much pressure from the floor and loss of production, management couldn't do their usual routine and drag out the settlement for months. They settled the grievance quickly and brought Rosie back to work.

“The supervisor had to go to ‘charm school,’ which acknowledged the problem and embarrassed the Terminator.

“The day Rosie returned to work, she was the only one, on all three shifts, who wasn't wearing a ‘Stop Harassment’ t-shirt. She didn't feel intimidated; she felt loved and protected.

“Management saw a demonstration of our solidarity and solid proof that we would not tolerate harassment and discrimination.

“I felt really proud to be part of this action. It made us feel our power as a union. Many people who are not usually outspoken or active or confrontational stepped forward. As an instigator my part was easy. I only had to appeal to the goodness in people's hearts.

“Rosie wasn't, if truth be told, a very good worker. And often times she irritated us too. But she was family.

“Given time and a patient instructor, Rosie did learn the job she was originally disqualified from. She proved capable. And management learned a valuable lesson: workers rule when they work to rule.”

This story appeared in A Troublemaker’s Handbook 2.