Following is

issue#32 of The Barking Dog,

which is put out by Caroline Lund, a member of UAW Local 2244 at the NUMMI plant in Fremont, CA. It is dated Nov. 28, 2000. Comments are welcome and may be printed in the next issue if you want.

Support Safeway Warehouse Workers!

Teamsters Local 439 have been striking Safeway's warehouse in Tracy (managed by Summit Logistics) since Oct. 18. The day before Thanksgiving, the Teamsters announced they were escalating their struggle, sending more pickets to Safeway stores and asking other Teamsters locals not to deliver to Safeway.
This strike is not fundamentally about money. Drivers are asking to be paid by the hour rather than by the delivery. Only fair, right? And warehouse workers are asking for safety guarantees.
The holiday season is when these workers have most leverage for their just struggle. We can help. Stop by and help them picket for a while. Talk with the strikers. Their issues are very similar to ours here at NUMMI. We may soon need support just like they need support.
If these workers succeed in winning gains in their contract, it will be a help to us in our negotiations next year. A defeat for them will put wind in the sails of NUMMI management, believe it!

DON'T SHOP SAFEWAY!

Presidential Election

What to make of this crazy election outcome? Here are some things to think about.
Despite all the media talk about heavy voter turnout, only 51% of eligible voters bothered to vote. After spending some $3 billion on their campaigns, neither candidate managed to convince a majority of the people that he was the best candidate.

It was a tie vote, and whoever wins got only about 25% of the votes of eligible voters.

I have heard a lot of discussion by coworkers about the Electoral College. If the U.S. is supposedly a democracy, why doesn't the popular vote decide the outcome?

An editorial in the S.F. Chronicle shed some light on this for me. It said: ". . . our founding fathers never meant the Electoral College to be democratic. It is, in fact, the last remnant of slavery in the US. Constitution."
The editorial explained how, in order to get the southern slave colonies to join in a united country with the northern colonies, a compromise was reached. The northern colonies' politicians recognized the southern colonies' slave system by granting them the right to count slaves as 3/5ths of a human being for the purposes of electing their congressional representatives, senators, and electoral college representatives.
As the Chronicle editorial says, ". . . the Electoral College therefore guaranteed that slaveholding southerners would join the new nation politically propped up by the population of their slaves."

Of course, at the founding of our country, only males with property could vote. Women couldn't vote until 1920, and most African Americans in Southern states couldn't vote until the 1960s because of discriminatory state laws.
The true history of our country is not very democratic. It has been a struggle to get the vote for women, Black people, farmers and workers.

The Electoral College system also makes it extremely difficult for any third party to gain a foothold, since each state's votes go, all or nothing, to the winner of the popular vote in that state.
Green Party candidate Ralph Nader got 3% of the vote nationally. The Hayward Daily Review reported last month: "Nader said America's political system is awash in oceans of corporate money that buy policy from elected officials who are concerned with little more than re-election. Such money is 'the big boulder blocking the highway of progress in this country,' he said, and must be eliminated through public funding of political campaigns.
"He called for universal health care and 'a national mission to abolish poverty."
Nader supporters were lambasted by Democrats as "spoilers." Nader responded "How can you spoil a system that's spoiled to the core?"

Don't we have to start to build a different kind of political party and system? As the Staley and Caterpillar workers said on their t-shirts, "If not us, who? If not now, when? If not here, where?"

Caroline Lund

No Watch for Injured Workers

My doctor said I have prolonged Repetitive Strain Syndrome and he does not know if it will be curable. Today I went to take my doctor's note to NUMMI, and I found out they gave out the watches already [a gift from Toyota for earning a J.D.Power award] and I knew I did not get notified to pick mine up.

Well, I went to Team Member Involvement to ask for my watch and they told me, "you're on LOA so you can't have one till you get released to come back to work."

I was really pissed off. I told her I worked just like everyone else and deserve that watch just as much as everyone at NUMMI. You know, if the Company feels that way, they can stick that watch up their sorry butt!

I think this would make a good article for The Barking Dog. And don't forget to put my name on the bottom in big letters.

Ute Fugate

Brazilian Auto Workers Win Big

60,000 Brazilian auto workers walked off their jobs Nov. 20 in the city of Sao Paulo, where many of the biggest auto plants are. Employees of GM, Toyota, Ford, Volkswagen, Mercedes Benz, Honda, and Scania all walked off together. They demanded a 20% wage increase, but then lowered their demand to 10%.

Four days later, they returned to work, having won a 10% wage hike and back pay for the days they were on strike.

If we are united, we can win!

Source: Associated Press

Where Your Dues Go

As a member of the Executive Board, I receive copies of our Local Union's financial reports. Here are some figures from the reports I have received:

In July, our officials spend $15,000 on lost time for union business, and $16,000 on travel and meals for people to attend conferences. We spent $60,200 in excess of income, and ended with a net cash worth of $409,000.
In August, they spent $35,000 on lost time, and $27,700 on travel, meals, and luncheons. We had $77,000 income in excess of disbursements. We ended with a net cash worth of $410,000.
In September, they spend $39,000 on lost time and $23,000 for travel and meals. We spent $70,000 more than we took in. Net cash worth was $414,000. (Figures rounded off)

We do need to send some people to attend certain conferences in order to play an active role in the labor movement beyond the walls of NUMMI. The problem is that a small number of people end up making the majority of the trips.
It is a problem that on the Executive Board we never discuss what our priorities should be. I think our priorities should be: 1) projects that benefit the membership, and 2) building solidarity with other unions on the front lines of the struggle.
We should prioritize things like holding democratic elections that everyone can easily participate in, the children's Christmas party that our Local has traditionally held, and education of the membership.

I have spoken with members of the Educational Committee who are very frustrated because they can't get the support of officials of our Local. The Recreation Committee, similarly, has met resistance to their proposal of a union picnic, which could bring us all together.
Instead of putting the priority on using our resources to benefit the membership, our union in-crowd wants to save all the money for trips, which they use as a way of building their political machine. If you ever make criticisms of the top leaders, or if you don't pass out leaflets for them or campaign for them, just watch, you will never get sent on a trip again.

Do you think this is right?

Caroline Lund

Mumia Abu-Jamal On Prisons

Mumia Abu-Jamal is a UAW member on death row. Our union is joining with many others in calling for a new trial for him because the trial he got was not fair. This is part of his message to the Million Family March held in Washington, D.C. last October:
"Look at our [African-American] present condition and you'll see not slavery but a legalized descendent, the prison industrial complex, there African-Americans and other people of color form a disproportionate percentage of those encased within the system.
"America, with something like 6% of the world's population, has over 24% of the world's prison population. With over 2 million men, women and juveniles in cages, perhaps most for non-violent drug offences, this America, which boasts of being the land of the free, is the prison house of nations, an empire built not on liberty but on repression.
"And once again, Angela Davis explains, prison construction is a very big business. Billions of dollars for prisons, while schools crumble and teachers bargain or beg for decent pay, billions of bucks for prisons, while homes and buildings crumble in Philadelphia and New York.
"What also crumbles are families, as children are separated from parents, as wives are separated from husbands, and people are separated from their communities. . . . ."

From the Internet

Ford Covered Up Defects

On Oct. 11, an Alameda County Judge ordered Ford to recall some 1.7 million vehicles that have a faulty ignition system which causes vehicles to unexpectedly stall.
He also ordered restitution to be paid to an estimated 3.5 million current and former owners of Ford vehicles. This is the first time a court has ordered such a recall.

The court found that Ford had knowingly installed the defective ignitions, and concealed the defects from consumers.
Ford has appealed the ruling, arguing that nobody died from the bad ignition systems yet, so it was not proved unsafe!

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