To: Detroit/Seattle
Workers' Voice mailing list
September 28, 2019
RE: GM strike news
RE: GM strike news
1. Worker solidarity grows
2. Korean metal workers' union supports US GM strike
3. Health care and the strikers
On Sunday, Sept. 22, Toledo Jeep workers, who are not on strike, organized a giant strike-support convoy for the striking workers at GM’s Toledo Transmission Plant. The convoy, composed of trucks and cars, was so long it took 15 minutes to pass the strikers’ picket line, greatly encouraging the strikers who are in the second week of their walkout.
Also this past weekend, a large group of Ford workers from Louisville, Kentucky, boarded buses and rode north to support the strikers’ picket line at the GM Corvette Assembly Plant in Bowling Green, Ohio. This too was a strong statement of support for the striking GM workers from a section of auto workers not currently striking.
In Detroit, on Sunday, about 250 worker-supporters came out in solidarity with the GM strike at the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant in a “Solidarity Sunday.”
And Tuesday, Sept. 24, a small group of retired postal workers joined the picket line at the same plant.
By Tim Hall, Detroit Workers' Voice <>
Below is a letter from the president of the Korean Metal Workers' Union to the UAW:
20 September 2019
Korean Metal Workers' Union Supports UAW Sisters and Brothers' Fight at GM
Dear President Jones,
Solidarity salute to you and the members of the United Auto Workers! I
am writing on behalf of 180,000 members of the Korean Metal Workers'
Union (KMWU)-- including 10,400 unionized workers at GM Korea also in
bargaining and partial strikes -- to express our support for your fight
for fair wages and profit-sharing, affordable health care, job security
and a defined path to permanent work for the precarious workers at GM.
Throughout the world, right of health is considered a basic human
right. We are outraged that 36 hours after your strike began, GM made
global news by pulling the carpet out from under its own employees'
feet--potentially putting at risk their family members' very lives--to
gain the upper hand in contract negotiations. We too experienced risk
being pushed onto peoples' lives with GM. Last year, GM closed Gunsan
plant, a blow to the whole community. Four desperate GM Korea workers
committed suicide after having worked quietly and faithfully at GM
their whole lives and now turned out on the street owing to
management's misjudgment of the market. But while closing plants,
shirking their responsibility for precarious workers, and saying we all
need to make sacrifices for an electric self-driving future, in stark
contrast, GM paid one employee over $21 million and recorded $8.1
billion in profits worldwide that same year their workers lost their
very lives.
This is why your strike is so important; it goes to the very heart of
who we are and what workers and unions around the world stand for. The
UAW is standing up to defend core values, for the precarious worker in
our midst and ultimately for a way of doing business and an economy
that works for us all.
In this fight, please know that you do not fight alone. Across the
ocean, we are fighting the same battle. We've heard some of the
unresolved issues at the GM negotiations in the US include profit
sharing for precarious workers and their being made permanent, which is
also what we are fighting for. Although some 10,000 precarious workers
were made permanent at Hyundai Motors and Kia Motors plants in Korea,
the fight continues at Hyundai, Kia and GM Korea. In particular, GM
Korea CEO Kaher Kazem is facing 7.74 billion Korean won penalty for
refusing to accept the Ministry of Employment and Labor order to make
the GM Korea precarious workers permanent. Additionally, today
dismissed GM Korea precarious workers collapsed and were hospitalized
after a 26-day hunger strike demanding reinstatement and precarious
workers' aerial occupation protest at the GM Korea factory front gates
that began on August 25 continues in this ongoing struggle. This
upcoming week we go on partial strikes demanding precarious workers at
GM Korea be made permanent and reinstatement of the unfairly dismissed,
for job security and a future, for fair wages and profit sharing, to
regain lost ground in our contract and for GM Korea to honor the
existing contract for our union members spun off into GM Korea
Technical Center. Sharing so many similar demands with our members at
GM Korea, we see our fights as part of the same fight -- May the
workers prevail.
In Solidarity,
Kim, Ho Guy
President Metal Workers' Union
Laid-off Korean GM workers outside the Bupyeong plant showing solidarity with US strikers:
https://www.leftvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/sk7.jpeg
https://www.leftvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/sk6.jpeg
https://www.leftvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/sk3.jpeg <>
Faced with widespread outrage, GM said on Thursday, September 26,
that it was reinstating health coverage for strikers. At least, that's
what GM says for now. Meanwhile in the "Stand Up for the Working Class"
FB group, one worker's view was cited: "For years I've wondered why
businesses/corporations wouldn't embrace universal health care given
how much money it would save them in employee benefits. Then GM
canceled the health care of their striking workers and it hit me all of
sudden like a ton of bricks that businesses/corporations use health
care as a weapon against their employees...it is one of the main
reasons that they are able to retain their employees even when they are
abusing them and/or underpaying them. They absolutely do not want to
lose that power over them (us). Don't know why I didn't realize that
earlier. I'm amazed at my naivety." <>
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Posted on September 28, 2019
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