Whirlpool Execs Hide Behind Their Corprat Logo - While Sending Jobs to Mexico

[Triana]

From my email today:

I was proud to join more than 5,500 workers, labor leaders and community and religious activists from at least six states in front of the Whirlpool plant in Evansville, Ind., this past Friday to deliver 70,000 petitions to Whirlpool management to Keep It Made in America.

Members of IUE-CWA, many of whose jobs are at stake, led the way as a group of us, including children and grandchildren of workers, clergy and retirees, used a Whirlpool refrigerator to wheel petitions to the plant’s locked front gate.

But no one was there to answer our knocks and accept your petitions. Instead of coming out to meet workers and their family and community members whose livelihoods are at stake, management hid behind locked doors and a huge corporate logo.

Management has hid for too long in America and it’s time for them to face up to their responsibilities and to the consequences of their actions. As IUE-CWA Local 808 President Darrell Collins made it clear, thanks to committed activists like you, our message is getting through:

We have had small rallies before and Whirlpool ignored us! They will not ignore us today! This is just the beginning of something big.

We must continue to make noise, fight for what’s right and make it clear that it is not OK for America’s workers to be reduced to stocking shelves down at Wal-Mart with stuff made in Mexico and China. We don’t have to accept second-class status for America. We can lead the world economy again if the leaders we elect step up and insist that we invest in America again.

This fight is about millions of individual lives that are impacted by the decisions of faceless corporations. We often talk about workers losing their jobs as statistics, but each worker has a story and their stories are individual tragedies, not statistics. Natalie Ford, a member of Local 808 whose job is at stake, put her story in words:

This doesn’t just affect us, it affects everyone in our families....This is the only life we’ve known—now it’s gone. The questions run through my mind: Am I going to lose everything I’ve worked my entire life for? I try to be strong for my family, but deep down I’m scared to death, not knowing what the future holds for us.

—Natalie Ford, member, IUE-CWA Local 808

We must remember who we are fighting for and why we are doing this. Working together we can save millions of jobs, rebuild our economy and change the lives of people like Natalie Foster. Click here to read more of Natalie’s story and other workers’ stories like hers.

The fight in Evansville for Natalie and her fellow workers is a microcosm for what is happening across the country, and as Seth Rosen, Communications Workers of America (CWA) vice president, said, unions and their so-called “legacy costs” aren’t the problem, they are what built cities like Evansville all across America:

Some people blame us for what they call “legacy costs”: union wages, health care, pension for retirees. There is a legacy from those things. You know what that legacy is? Every firehouse in Evansville, Ind., is a legacy of the tax dollars of union workers making a middle-class wage. Every schoolhouse is a legacy of the people who work in this plant.

—Seth Rosen, CWA vice president

To make sure Whirlpool heard us loud and clear, the Machinists, coordinating with the Michigan State AFL-CIO, delivered more than 40,000 petitions to Whirlpool headquarters in Michigan and online activists like you made more than 1,700 phone calls to Whirlpool headquarters. Speaking of calls, could you give Whirlpool a call again and tell them to Keep It Made in America? You can call them toll free: 800-705-7083.

Only working together can we take our country back and make sure that everyone has a good job. IUE-CWA President Jim Clark talked about the commitment his members made, some of whom came to Evansville all the way from Louisville, Ky.:

We’ve had some bad weather, and in this weather here for union people to come from all the different states on a Friday evening, that means they’re ready to fight and they’re ready to fight for you.

—Jim Clark, IUE-CWA president

In solidarity,

Richard Trumka
AFL-CIO President

P.S. The fight for jobs at Whirlpool is a part of our nationwide jobs campaign. We will be rolling out actions across the country in the coming weeks and I look forward to your support and leadership. In Washington, we are calling on Congress and the Obama administration to http://www.aflcio.org/issues/jobseconomy/jobs/jobsagenda.cfm">take five steps now to care for jobless workers and put America back to work, and by organizing and fighting we will make them listen.