Class-struggle unionism isn't dead
By Barry Sheppard
Workers at Caterpillar, which produces farm and heavy construction equipment, have been fighting for a fair contract since November 1991, when the company forced a strike by the United Automobile Workers. In February, UAW members overwhelmingly rejected the company's latest offer, in spite of the UAW leadership's support of the give-back contract proposal, by 58 to 42%.
In 1991, Caterpillar refused to accept "pattern bargaining", that is, contract terms the UAW had reached with the big car companies. The result was a five-month strike, during which Caterpillar vowed to break the union.
The workers mobilised to stop scabs but were told by UAW officials to "obey the law" and let the scabs through. Unable to win in these circumstances, the UAW tops ordered the workers back to work without an agreement.
The company imposed its contract in the plants. Workers were harassed and even fired for doing things like wearing union T-shirts or badges, or "talking disrespectfully" to scabs. This gave rise to hundreds of charges by the union of unfair labour practices.
Another strike over these practices began in June 1994 and lasted 17 months, the company keeping its operations going by using scabs. UAW officials again ordered members back to work under the same conditions, even though the workers had again voted down the company's proposal.
The new proposal would have the union drop its unfair labour practices charges and give amnesty to the scabs while not giving amnesty to and re-hiring all the workers fired during the strikes. It would introduce a two-tier wage, new hires receiving sharply lower wages than the current workers. Another provision would allow Caterpillar freely to hire and fire low-paid and "temporary" workers.
The New York Times noted, "The agreement stands in sharp contrast to the triumph scored by United Parcel Service strikers" last summer. The Wall Street Journal stated the proposal gave Caterpillar everything it wanted in 1991.
Cameron Austin, a worker at Caterpillar's Decatur, Illinois, plant, where the workers voted down the latest offer by 91%, was interviewed in the Socialist Organizer newspaper after the vote. He is a writer for the rank and file newsletter Kick the Cat.
Austin said, "For more than six years we have been fighting for our rights, for a decent contract. The UAW leadership acknowledged all this time that Cat's offer was unacceptable. And then they changed their tune, telling us we had no choice but to surrender ...
"Three weeks before we took the contract offer to a vote, many UAW local presidents — such as Jim Clingan, president of UAW Local 974 in Peoria, Illinois — admitted the contract was a piece of shit. But then one week before the vote, Clingan said we had to take the contract. He had buckled under the pressure of the UAW International.
"The members right there saw something was wrong. They started speaking up."
Austin reflected the view of many workers quoted in the press about why the workers rejected the offer: "Our own union was going to allow 441 unfair labor practices, which we have been winning, to be dropped completely. They wanted us to give amnesty to the scabs, but they wouldn't give amnesty to our members. And even amnesty is not good enough for our fellow unionists ... They should all be exonerated ...
"The grievance procedure was gutted. And the list of abominations goes on and on — cuts and takeaways in health care, retirement, holidays, apprenticeship programs and grievance backlogs."
Austin and others are organising "a bus trip to Solidarity House [the headquarters of the UAW International] in Detroit ...
"We've contacted other UAW locals — at Ford and GM — and invited them to come along with us and participate. Our purpose is to say that we, the rank and file, are the boss. We will determine the fate of our union. It's bottom-up leadership from now on."
That these workers could still hold their heads high and vote for what is right and for solidarity with their fired brothers and sisters, in spite of being forced back to work under onerous conditions and in face of the capitulation by their leaders, indicates that class-struggle unionism is not dead. This is a lesson also illustrated by the United Parcel Service workers.