By Berry Craig
Professor of history, West Kentucky Community and Technical College
What makes members of the United Steelworkers (USW) hop a bus at 6 a.m. and ride six hours so they can march in 95-degree August heat to show solidarity with their union brothers and sisters? Jim Robinson, director of Steelworkers District 7 in Gary, Ind., explains:
“We love it. This is what we do.”
Some 3,000 union members and their families from at least four states recently rallied in Metropolis, Ill., in support of USW Local 7-669, which has been locked out at a Honeywell Corp. plant that processes uranium for use in nuclear fuel.
Cheryl DeCero, who belongs to the USW’s Women of Steel organization, rode a charter bus from Gary, 365 miles north of Metropolis. Before she learned of the lockout, which began June 28, the only Metropolis she knew about was the Man of Steel’s fictional hometown.
Her bus arrived in the real Metropolis—population about 6,500—early enough for passengers to get a peek at the 15-foot, two-ton bronze statue of Superman on the court square.
But DeCero, a member of USW Local 1011 in East Chicago, Ind., wasn’t in Metropolis for sightseeing.
“We’re here because we know what the workers are struggling against.”
Robin Rich, another Woman of Steel and USW Local 6787 member, came from Gary.
“We left at six this morning, but some of the people drove two hours to get on the bus. We’re here for them because they’re brothers and sisters, like family members.”
“Family members” include kids. The Gary USW contingent brought a candy-stuffed piñata in the shape of a bright-yellow honeybee—Honeywell.
Many youngsters who pummeled the piñata were sons and daughters of the more than 225 hourly workers Honeywell locked out after the union turned down a contract offer from the company that would eliminate 45 jobs, seniority, overtime pay, pensions and retiree medical benefits, according to Darrell Lillie, Local 7-669 president. He called the rally:
“unbelievable, bigger than we ever dreamed of. The support is really overwhelming.”
Busloads of Steelworkers also rolled in from Chicago and from Granite City, Ill., near St. Louis. Most of the crowd was local, from Metropolis, an old Ohio River town, and from communities in southern Illinois. But several people came from over the river in western Kentucky and northwestern Tennessee.
Kip Phillips, an assistant to USW President Leo Gerard, read a letter from Gerard urging appropriate federal authorities to investigate whether the 200 “replacement workers” the company hired are operating the plant safely.
The letter says “replacement workers,” but I call them scabs.
The letter also warned that an accident at the facility, located just outside Metropolis, could be catastrophic. Phillips pointed out that chemicals used in the plant, plus the radioactive material the plant manufactures, are potentially deadly.
Robinson said Honeywell’s attempt to break Local 7-669 is:
“part of a larger fight going on in this country. It is the fight for the rights of working people to negotiate and obtain what we once thought was simply accepted in our society.”
“This fight is an old fight. It is in the Bible. Corporate greed is in the Bible. When the pharaoh was too greedy to pay the Israelites, they organized and walked out.”
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Berry Craig is the author of True Tales of Old-Time Kentucky Politics: Bombast, Bourbon & Burgoo and Hidden History of Kentucky in the Civil War. He is a member of a member of AFT Local 6010.
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This piece was first published on the AFL-CIO Now Blog.
Posted August 15, 2010 at 8:00 am, in From AFL-CIO
April 19th, 2011 at 11:40 pm
[...] union’s unwillingness to yield to those demands prompted [...]