GM strikers occupy plant, save jobs with contract settlement

By Shelley Ettinger, Workers World, 31 October 1996

In the second week of the Canadian Auto Workers' walkout at General Motors:

• Strikers took over an Oshawa, Ontario, GM plant to prevent the company from removing machinery and closing the factory.

  They sat in, physically guarding tool-and-die equipment. Other members of the 14,000-strong Oshawa CAW local picketed outside, blocking entry to the plant and protecting the occupiers inside.

• Delegations of UAW members from the United States crossed the border to join picket lines in Oshawa, St. Catherines, and Windsor, Ontario. The Steel Workers pledged financial support for the CAW strike.

  Canadian unions offered the CAW over $12 million in interest-free loans. CAW President Buzz Hargrove said a tiny nurses' union in California offered whatever financial support it could manage.

  It is incredible the number of messages of solidarity and offers of support that we have got, he said.

• Plans for an Oct. 25-26 general strike in Toronto were announced. Even if the GM strike is settled by then, CAW President Buzz Hargrove announced, his members would participate. That was week two of the strike, which started Oct. 2 and quickly pulled out all 28,000 GM Canada employees.

Week three

• Delegates attended a special national meeting of the CAW, Canada's biggest union, on Oct. 18. They voted to approve a special dues assessment so the union can maintain strike benefits for the GM workers if the walkout lasts more than six weeks.

• The Canadian economy--where one of every five jobs depends on the auto industry--was feeling the strike's impact. The pressure on GM heightened.

  The Wall Street Journal reported Oct. 21 that key federal government officials also are understood to have contacted top GM officials in Canada in recent days urging them to find a way to settle with the union.

• The international ripple effect became more pronounced. By the afternoon of Oct. 21, GM reported that it had been forced to lay off or furlough 18,371 employees in the United States and Mexico because of the Canadian strike.

  By Oct. 22, at least 14 GM plants in the United States and six in Mexico were fully or partly shut down.

SIT-IN MOVES GM

As workers in Dayton, Ohio, did last March, Canadian auto workers have humbled the mightiest corporation in the world. They have shown that the strike weapon is still a potent force.

That's why GM's top corporate officer, Chief Executive Jack Smith--who usually stays above the fray, at least officially-- had to fly to Toronto Oct. 16 to meet with Hargrove.

The Oshawa takeover, especially, forced Smith to act. Hargrove told union members at the special dues session Oct. 18, Mr. Smith was taken aback by this issue.

According to various reports, Smith insisted the sit-in end. The CAW refused unless GM agreed to accept key contract provisions limiting its right to cut jobs through outsourcing.

As of Oct. 22, the union had apparently won that demand.

Details are not available. It's unclear whether GM agreed to the same language as Chrysler, acknowledging the principle of the employees' work ownership. But the union apparently won its key demand, saving some 1,800 jobs GM had slated to cut through outsourcing.

Other items remained on the table, however. When Smith arrived in Canada, Hargrove set a deadline of noon, Oct. 21, to reach an overall agreement.

That deadline came and went with no pact. Negotiators adjourned late that night, and resumed talks the morning of Oct. 22. The central remaining sticking points revolved around the Oshawa and Windsor plants, which GM wants to sell.

That afternoon, a tentative agreement was announced. GM can sell the plants, according to reports, but wages and benefits there must stay at the current levels for at least three years.

In addition, the union won its demand that GM end mandatory overtime at Oshawa. And, in a major anti- discrimination victory, gay and lesbian GM employees will get health benefits for their lovers.