Corporations, UAW continue campaign against Indianapolis GM workers

[IndianaGreen]

Corporations, UAW continue campaign against Indianapolis GM workers

By Jerry White and Andre Damon
31 August 2010

The campaign by General Motors, the United Auto Workers and investor Justin Norman to force workers at the Indianapolis stamping plant to take a 50 percent wage cut moved ahead Sunday with a meeting between Norman and a small group of GM workers and their families.

Norman, a 34-year-old former stockbroker, is insisting that workers accept a reduction in pay from $29 an hour to $15.50 as precondition for his purchase of the factory, which GM plans to close next year. On August 15 workers shouted down and drove out UAW International executives from their local union meeting for agreeing to the concessions and defying their vote barring any talks with Norman.

The rebellion by workers caught the UAW, the corporations and the political establishment off guard. It also has provoked widespread interest and sympathy from workers around the country. Since then, the forces lined up against the workers have sought to regroup and work out a plan to force through another vote.

The UAW and Norman, backed by the local media, are peddling the claim that only a “vocal minority” opposes the deal. They claim the majority of workers are being “intimidated” by these opponents who are not interested in keeping the plant open, but only in retaining their wages and benefits by transferring to other GM plants.

In fact, all the intimidation is being carried out by the corporations, which are using the threat of another plant closure to force workers to accept poverty level wages. Norman told reporters Sunday that the first set of dies used to stamp auto parts has already been shipped to other GM facilities, and added that he hoped getting a new vote “didn’t take too long because there is a plant shutdown schedule that we are up against.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/aug2010/norm-a31.shtml