If you were asked to take an $8 an hour pay cut or lose our jobs, what would you do?

---

Is Nexteer Union Vote Reminiscent of Habitant Furniture Strike in 1960s?

What Was the Meaning of Wall Street Protest March in Detroit Last Thursday?

June 20, 2010
By: Dave Rogers

Nexteer (formerly Delphi) workers last week voted solidly against taking huge wage cuts.

Many were immediately laid off.

It reminded an old news reporter of the Habitant Furniture strike in the 1960s.

As hundreds of workers gathered around a fire in a barrel on Water Street, trying to keep warm in the winter chill, plant owner "Buzz" Eddy drove up in a long Cadillac.

Dismounting, Mr. Eddy addressed the crowd something like this, in my recollection: "Folks, you're all making about $2.50 an hour. I can't afford $2.75. The furniture business isn't what it used to be. Trust me, I'll have to close the plant because I just can't stand that kind of increase."

As Mr. Eddy drove away, the mumbling increased to a steady buzz. Then the representative of the Furniture Workers Union, from Chicago, drove up, having just arrived at the airport.

"Folks, don't believe Mr. Eddy. He can pay and he will. Stick to your guns. Twenty-five cents an hour is peanuts!" Then he drove away.

The next morning I was back by the burning barrel, with only a few of the union faithful on hand. Mr. Eddy arrived, again in the big Caddy. He slowly opened the trunk of the car and took out a huge chain and a lock. The onlookers gasped as he calmly wrapped the chain around the gate, snapped the lock shut, nodded sadly to the union members, and drove away.

In my recollection most or all were reported to have gone on welfare, which in those days was a pittance. Maybe some got unemployment for a while and some undoubtedly moved on to other jobs.

But their world in Bay City would never be the same, much as the world facing the several hundred Nexteer workers in Saginaw will change forever.

Are we seeing the sad end of a great company that as Saginaw Steering Gear made prodigious numbers of machine guns and bullets for the U.S. military effort in World War II?

Are we experiencing some of the final death throes of the industrial machine that once was Michigan?

If you or me was asked to take an $8 an hour pay cut or lose our jobs, what would we do?

All this was overshadowed by events that occurred in Detroit last Thursday. Events for which we can only guess at their meaning and import.

Events that few have paid attention to or much considered.

Bob King, the newly elected president of the United Auto Workers union left the organization's 35th Constitutional Convention, grabbed a sign and led members and other UAW officers along with community and labor supporters in a downtown Detroit march Thursday afternoon.

The marchers were demanding that Wall Street pay for the damaging recession it caused by:

paying its fair share to create the 11 million jobs America needs,

by ceasing its opposition to financial reform, and

by making loans available to homeowners to stop foreclosures, to communities, small businesses and other entities starved of credit.

"Good Jobs Now" is a campaign launched by the AFL-CIO and affiliated unions aimed at big Wall Street banks that all but a few would agree wrecked the American economy and killed American jobs -- then took $700 billion in taxpayer bailouts, choked off credit, handed out massive executive bonuses and hired an army of lobbyists to fight financial reform.

Also participating in the march: UAW Secretary-Treasurer-elect Dennis Williams, UAW Vice Presidents-elect Joe Ashton and Cindy Estrada, current UAW Vice Presidents General Holiefield and Jimmy Settles; and Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa, NAACP President and CEO Ben Jealous, and the Rev. Dr. Wendell Anthony.

What are we seeing? A reprise of the 1920s and 1930s when working people, including socialists and communists took over the streets in protests against "Big Business?"

When Henry Ford's thugs beat Walter Reuther and his pals in the "Battle of the Overpass" at the Rouge Plant?

When the organizers took over auto plants in Flint, Saginaw and Bay City and locked out their bosses until they were given contracts?

Are we seeing the start of open class warfare that could lead to violence? Have the working people been pushed to that? Have the sins of the banks and huge corporations finally become so egregious and transparent that a majority no longer will object against revolt?

Or is all this just an adjustment in the economy that is inevitable and will be overcome by good paying jobs in green energy, solar and other emerging fields?

Will the visit of the Vice President to the new Dow Kokam battery plant in Midland on Monday signal the success of the transition we all hope is occurring?

Let's hope the latter is the case.

Let's hope Nexteer isn't sold off to the Chinese or locked down like the Habitant Furniture plant.

Let's hope the transition to the new economy we all hope for is calm and the parties are collaborative.###