UAW holds 'Red Shirt Rally' and practice picket
Also, an editorial: The Kokomo Lantern stands with the UAW
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Hundreds of United Auto Workers (UAW) members, their families, and supporters from around the community gathered on Sunday evening, Sept. 24, for a "Red Shirt Rally" and practice picket. The flash mob-style event brought the unionists together to show support for the UAW negotiating team bargaining with the Big Three automakers, and to demonstrate the people's resolve in their fight for better compensation and job security.
The west parking lot of the UAW Local 685 union hall along Hoffer Street was packed with red-shirted marchers, who brandished signs that demanded better pay and a cost-of-living adjustment, a record contract in the wake of record corporate profits, and an end to tiered wage structures.
After the Pledge of Allegiance and a few quick words from union leadership, the people took to the streets, literally. The group marched down Hoffer Street to Plate Street, and south along Plate until they reach Stellantis' casting and transmission plants along Boulevard.
The route and the procedures observed during this “practice” march will become important should the UAW decide to strike in Kokomo or should the company choose to furlough workers here.
To say that support for the unionists' cause was evident would be an understatement, as dozens of motorists honked and waved in support of the impromptu march. And among the marchers, none other than Mayor Tyler Moore walked in support, wearing a red shirt and showing solidarity.
The UAW currently is negotiating new contracts with Stellantis, Ford, and General Motors, and is demanding an ambitious compensation package that would effectively restore much of what the workers sacrificed over the past 15 years to aid the companies during hard times. Additionally, the UAW is demanding that the new electric vehicle battery plants -- including the one under construction in Kokomo -- be unionized.
The union leaders pledged that these Sunday marches would continue as long as the contracts go unsettled.
EDITORIAL
The union's fight is everyone's fight
It is easy to look at the list of demands the United Auto Workers have made to the Big Three automakers and just assume that they are being unrealistic. Media outlets have focused on the 40-percent raises and four-day work week, stripping away context and suggesting that greed has taken the place of common sense.
This pessimistic lens serves only to further polarize the American people, fostering feelings of jealousy and even anger at their fellow middle-class citizens. After all, it's not like their employers would consider such demands. Walmart wouldn't think of giving out 40-percent raises. Health professionals, teachers, and small business employees wouldn't dare dream of receiving five days of pay for four days of work. And pensions? Those are things of the past, right?
What is overlooked in this depiction of the UAW's fight is that the workers have given up much of what their predecessors secured for them over decades of fighting for a living wage, a secure job, and a reasonable retirement. And when they lost, so did the communities in which they lived and worked.
Today, there are more people working in Stellantis' Kokomo plants without a pension, without job security, with wages that rival only those paid in food service and other jobs that once were considered entry level, than those receiving "first-tier" wages and benefits.
Today, a Stellantis worker in Kokomo is more likely a "temporary" employee, making less than $17 an hour and being forced to work overtime at the company's whim. And that temporary status is not truly considered full-time. They work alongside people doing the same job for more money and without the same job security.
If fairness is the issue, it doesn't exist on the Stellantis plant floor. And yet people who would turn their noses up at the prospect of working in a factory begrudge those who are willing to do the job to take care of their families, even if it means having to take a second job to supplement what little they earn through the automaker.
The autoworkers deserve what they are asking for from the companies, especially given the astronomical profits Stellantis, Ford, and General Motors have enjoyed. Perhaps the demands sound too high, but no one goes into negotiations asking for the least they will accept from the start.
There are two important things that the people of Kokomo must realize in all of this:
First, any gain that the union makes at the bargaining table is a gain for the entire community. Increased wages means increased spending at local businesses. Unlike the billionaires at the top of the food chain who can squirrel away money, build generational wealth, and live like kings on the interest alone, the Stellantis workers will use their increased compensation on goods and services, improving economic conditions for everyone.
And any gains made in job security, working conditions, and retirement can benefit the rest of us, too. It has been the case for more than a century that the union's wins in these arenas carry over to the rest of working America.
It was the union that secured a 40-hour workweek. It was the union that won medical leave, paid vacations, environmental work protections, and the very concept of overtime compensation. Most of the working conditions enjoyed by Americans originated at the union bargaining table. A win for the UAW today could easily spell a win for all workers in the future.
Second, for Kokomo in particular, this contract fight is about the future of the entire region. Among the demands being hashed out in Detroit is the insistence that the new electric vehicle (EV) battery plant being erected by Stellantis and Samsung -- the StarPlus Energy partnership -- be staffed by union-represented workers.
Of all the issues being bargained, this is the most important to Kokomo. Without union representation, StarPlus will be free to pay low wages similar to the lowest tier at Stellantis. Don't think that will happen? It already is. The UAW recently unionized an EV battery plant in Ohio -- Ultium Cells LLC. Those workers were not making a living wage. They were not receiving adequate benefits. And they voted, 710-16, to unionize last December.
If StarPlus is allowed to bring its battery plant in Kokomo online without union representation, it will be the beginning of the end for Kokomo as we know it.
How could this be true? Surely, that is a gross exaggeration. It is not. Kokomo workers build transmissions and engines for Stellantis vehicles. Electric vehicles? They don't have transmissions. They don't have combustion engines. The battery is the powertrain.
The goal of the automotive industry is to walk away from internal combustion vehicles by 2030. The battery plant is Kokomo's lifeline as the men and women in Stellantis' transmission plants are the last generation to do so. Those jobs will disappear by the end of the decade, and with them will go every shred of prosperity Kokomo enjoys.
Unless.
If the UAW wins this fight, if they secure the gains they seek, if the EV battery plant is unionized, there will be an avenue for workers in Kokomo and the surrounding community to prosper. There will be good wages paid that are spent in our local restaurants and shops. There will be taxes paid to maintain our streets, our parks, our public safety. That's more than can be said for StarPlus, which enjoys abatements and tax increment financing districts that divert or forgive the company's tax burden.
The Kokomo Lantern stands with the United Auto Workers, its members, their families, and this entire community. We support the UAW's efforts at the bargaining table. We encourage everyone to set aside traditional politics, as did Mayor Tyler Moore when he walked with the UAW on Sunday.
We challenge all of Kokomo and Howard County to stand in solidarity with their fellow citizens. We ask them to see this contract negotiation for what it is. It is a battle for our future. The job and way of life you stand for will be your own.