| Johnson Controls union meetings are now held
in conjunction with the Delphi Needmore Road meetings. The meetings are held the THIRD Sunday of each
month at 1:30 p.m. Please attend YOUR union meetings each
month.
A message to my Union Brothers and
Sisters:
I doubt there can be any doubt in anyone’s
mind, that for Labor, these are very troubling times.
Unfortunately, there are many who may feel insulated from what’s
happening to the working, women and men of this country. Some
may feel secure in their management positions, some by virtue of
their professional status. But just as the attack on Union auto
workers is met with anxiety by the non-Union workers who supply
them, those whose wages and benefits are indexed to Union wages
and benefits, and retail operations that rely on Union workers’
disposable income, everyone’s status is threatened by the
unraveling of what it’s taken Unions more than six decades to
build.
That is something that shouldn’t require
detailing. And yet it does. Prohibition of child labor, the
eight hour day, the five day work week, holidays off, overtime,
safety standards; the list is too long to complete here, but
just about everything “decent” concerning working for an
employer in this country has been won by the Union, not just for
Union Members, but for everyone. Before Labor organized, this
country was a disgusting example of avarice-induced inhumanity.
With the degradation of the political process, the government
selling itself to corporate interests, and so many Americans
willing to “drink the Kool-Aid”, rather than educate themselves
and actively reclaim their right to self-governance, we’ve come
to where we are.
Where are we? There are Union Members...
far too many Union Members, who affiliate themselves politically
and morally with the corrupt, illegitimate warmongers in
office. Throughout this country’s history, there has been room
for differing opinions; honest, informed, well reasoned debate
makes us stronger. But the founding fathers didn’t anticipate
today’s media and how it fosters those who respond only to
jingoism, false religionists who only want to be led, are so
easily manipulated, don’t inform themselves, prefer being told,
to finding out, those who suck the teat of the administration’s
mouthpiece, FOX “news”. In other words, those who can be bought
with an allusion to relatively inconsequential issues such as
gay marriage or abortion, or prayer in school, while the
administration is destroying families economically, slaughtering
“born” children, and making a mockery of Christ’s message.
There are those that consider themselves
republicans, there’s no fault there, but to align themselves
with the current administration exposes them as zealots,
ideologues, or idiots. This Christmas season it’s cruelly
ironic that what the Bush administration, and its owners - the
wealthy and the large corporations, has at the heart of all
their efforts, a desire to return us to a Dickensian past. It’s
their wish to simplify things with two classes, the wealthy, and
the poor. The American dream is not theirs. They want it all,
well; they want you to survive, in poverty and squalor, because
they require you trading the days of your life for their
wealth.
Right now, off the top of your head, tell
me, what is the one entity fighting them. I trust the Union
came to mind because I know almost no one else is. The Union is
really all we have; the Union’s been waging this war for
decades. The Union doesn’t always deliver, it makes wrong
decisions, it gets mired in bureaucracy, it’s not perfect, and
nothing is. But the Union, by it’s very nature, with your
input, can’t deviate from it’s purpose, fairness and justice,
and you, Union Members, are the ones who determine it’s
success. “You are the Union”, it’s not just a “defense”, it’s
not just a mindless response, you are the Union, the
Union’s shortcomings can be easily identified, and the Union’s
failure is actually your failure to be active in what is
probably the last, best democratic institution in this
country.
Just as this country has been subverted by
lack of the electorate informing themselves and acting, your
Union suffers when you don’t inform yourselves, or refuse to act
in your own best interest, the interest in our common goals.
You can become involved now, you can start supporting Union
efforts now, you can make the decision, just to yourself if you
like, that the only support group you have is your Union.
Or you can remain uninvolved, just wait and
see what the corporation has in store for you. And maybe, later
on, at contract time, when they tell you that they want to
pattern our contract along the lines of the Delphi concessions,
and halve your wages, and drop your benefits you’ll rise up in
anger, and expect the Union to save your pay, your benefits and
jobs, I doubt many of you will realize then, that that ship has
sailed. Your failure to support organized Labor now, will
affect your earnings and benefits the rest of your life. Your
failure to support the Union Membership at Delphi will, very
literally, haunt you the rest of your life.
It’s really simple, and for those that
cannot grasp this simple premise, I’m sorry, but put this in
your head and let it dwell, it’s a war, the corrupt
corporatists have bought the country, their only goal is to
increase their wealth through our sacrifice, they are winning,
the Union is their enemy, it’s all that opposes them.
We are the Union, we’d damned well better
start acting like it. It’s time to become radical. It’s time
to fight them at every juncture. Their goal is to hurt us, I
know, they say they want to work with us, look out for our
safety and welfare, maintain competitiveness, that’s all
garbage, they’re out to swindle us, cheat us, steal from us, lie
to us…
Look around, am I wrong?
Support your Union, support Delphi, support
the Labor movement, fight back against those filthy bastards so
bereft of ethics and morals, who slaver at the thought of
employing 10 year old children for a couple dollars a day, they
are liars and thieves, fight back, every day, in everything you
do, fight back!
Thursdays, we wear red shirts, because we
recognize that we are in this fight, we realize it affects us
every bit as much as our Brothers and Sisters at Delphi.
Because we realize that the only power we have to control our
situation is through our solidarity, not only here in this
plant, but with all who work for wages and resist the corporate
greed that this administration entitles.
Thursdays - WEAR RED! As I look
across the plant floor, as we all look around, we’ll know who
has joined our fight and who hasn’t, we’ll know whether our
cause, as just as it is, is certain, or lost. It is your fight
whether you realize it or not, your decision now, will impact
the rest of your life, and I don’t believe I’m exaggerating,
this war is ours to win or lose, those who don’t care, needn’t,
those of us who do care, will wage the war.
In Solidarity, Your Representative in
the Rear
Seat, Gary Isaacs
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