Unionists reject GM's demands

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6 SOCIALIST ACTION MAY 1987 FRAMINGHAM, Mass.—There were record-high voter turnouts in the recent elections for executive-board and jointcouncil posts at United Auto Workers (VAW) Local 422, which has jurisdiction over the General Motors plant here.

The high vote and the interest that autoworkers displayed in the election campaign graphically illustrated their determination to turn back concessionary bargaining in the upcoming local and national contract negotiations.

In 1986, GM had record sales of $103 billion. It is the Fortune 500's No. 1 company and has spent billions for new acquisitions and "modernization."

Yet the company took back from its workers 11 paid holidays. Annual wage increases were replaced with a "profit-sharing" formula which allowed GM to not distribute one penny of its wealth to the workers who created it. Meanwhile, the company divided over $169 million in bonus funds to its top executives.

GM shuts plants nationwide General Motors has scheduled extensive cutbacks during the next three years. At least 11 production and assembly plants will be closed down, and much of GM's parts production will be transferred to outside contractors. Some 30,000 workers will lose their jobs.

Framingham's management has used the threat of a closure here in order to attempt to wrest concessions in the spirit of "labor/management cooperation." Ultimate -ly, work-rules changes and other givebacks are threatened.

Similar concession demands by GM recently forced a strike by 9000 members of UAW Local 594 at the General Motors Truck and Bus Complex in Pontiac, Mich. Local 594 won the strike, illustrating the autoworkers' deep anti-concessions spirit. Bob Schroeder, a spokesperson for Local 594, said that the victory "shows that other Mike Fliss is an assembler at the General Motors plant in Framingham and a member of UAW Local 422. local unions can stand up for their rights the same as we've done and win."

Incumbents are challenged

The upcoming contract negotiations were the background for the recent Local 422 election. Opposition was mounted against the incumbents' slate by independents and by a slate referred to as the STAND-UP (Strength Through A New Democratic Union Process) Coalition.

A key objective of the challengers was to stem the decay of democratic rights in the union in order to better face the contract talks.

In its platform, the STAND-UP Coalition said: "The challenges ahead require an informed and participating rank and file. We need active committees, open, convenient and regular union meetings, 'two-way' communication, a real news -paper, and much more."

The visibility of thousands of informed members is a powerful bargaining tool against a multinational corporation whose tactics are to isolate and manipulate a few, favored union officials behind closed doors. Union officials must be accountable and responsible to the union membership.

GM aids the incumbents Committeemen and appointees were permitted by the company to campaign on company time, while these same rights were denied to STAND-UP candidates and independents. The STAND-UP campaign literature reported that the incumbent union leaders had "gone as far as threatening not to represent people wearing STAND-UP buttons."

STAND-UP charged, "Finally, they've made the ultimate threat'Vote for us or you'll lose your job.' We remember when only the company made threats like that.

Despite the harassment, however, two of eight STAND-UP Candidates for Joint Council gained seats and two were runnerups. An independent challenger was elected executive vice president and one of three STAND-UP candidates was elected to the executive board as sergeant-at-arms.

Another STAND-UP candidate lost the race for recording secretary by only 37 votes in the amalgamated local, but TWO-TIER WAGES ARE UNAMERICAN AND INEOUITABLE within the plant.

Red-baiting tactics The local's president, Chuck McDevitt, failed to garner a majority in the voting. He was only elected after being forced into a runoff with Howard Horton, the third STAND-UP challenger.

Horton, a Black candidate, was attacked for "only being concerned with his positions on South Africa and on minority questions." The incumbent's red-baiting campaign literature included a question to the STAND-UP candidate: "Are you associated with communists?"

Such tactics are found on pages torn from the corporate boss's book. They conspire to divide workers by their prejudices at a moment when they should be united by their principles.

LOS ANGELES-On April 7, more than 100 members and supporters of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA) picketed outside the board meeting of Equitable Life Assurance Society, a major bondholder of American Airlines.

Many of the flight attendants wore masks in hope they would not be recognized and fired. This has already happened to other union members.

The leaflet put out by the union protested price-fixing, dumping chemical wastes, neglecting airplane maintenance, and awarding executives lavish salaries while paying many workers poverty-level wages.

The union is fighting to end the two-tier wage system which pays newer flight attendants as little as $11,600 a year, a level low enough to qualify many of them for food stamps. Contract negotiations went into impasse on March 24 for a 30day "cooling off" period.

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Flight attendants protest two-tier