Tom Laney: "Concessions are killing labor'

Scan page 9

The following is an interview with Workers Local 879 in St. Paul, Minn. The interview was conducted by Alan Benjamin on Aug. 14, 1985.

Socialist Action: How do you assess the employer attacks today, particulary as they affect auto workers?

Tom Laney: The most dangerous thing that we face today are these quality-work-life programs that are being organized and institutionalized at General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler.

These are so-called partnership situations which have led to the type of bargaining done on the Saturn agreement.

The Saturn agreement means the elimination of seniority systems; the elimination of lines of demarcation in the skilled trades, classification systems, and production areas; the elimination of shop-floor representation-of any real kind of grievance procedure.

The Saturn agreement is similar to the NUMMI [New United Motors Manufacturing Inc.—the General MotorsToyota Joint Venture] agreement in Fremont, Calif. We're appraised that the Alpha agreement at Ford will be patterned after Saturn.

Roger Smith [the chairman of General Motors] has already gone on record saying that the Saturn agreement is just the beginning-that the object is to Saturnize the entire industry.

S.A.: What do you think can be done to respond to this fundamental challenge to the labor movement?

Laney: Well, there's a fight going on now, involving the steelworkers in Wheeling and the packinghouse workers in Austin, Minn. I think if those fights were won, this would generate a lot of local union activities. I think it would mobilize a lot of membership feelinggalvanize people who are tired of all these concessions, tired of the way this leadership has been bargaining.

There's a group now called National Rank and File Against Concessions that I think has some promise. I'm sure the international will say this is a form of dual-unionism, but I think what it really GO AWAY RETRAN is is an effort to organize people in the ranks for a return to a more traditional style of bargaining.

S.A.: Could you tell us more about the Hormel fight in Austin. Have you been involved in organizing support for the workers there?

Laney: Well, they are going to strike tonight at midnight. They've been fighting for a return to the $10.69 wage they were earning before last October, when the company slashed wages by 23 percent. The union then hired Ray Rogers and the "corporate campaign" people.

I think that Rogers has brought a lot of good organizational skills to that local union. At the same time, the local has a real good executive board, and Guyette [Jim Guyette is president of Local P-9 of the United Food and Com(continued on page 12, in “Solidarnosc— dress rehearsal for the coming political revolution”)

----- pull-quotes -----

STEEL INDUSTRY CLOSED