LABOR DAY
Monday September 7th is Labor Day in the United States. The rest of the world honors labor on May 1st. But we do things differently from the rest of the world. Like our corporate-controlled health care system, we observe a corporate-controlled Labor Day weekend filled with shopportunities and blowout back-to-school sales. And both our health and the health of the labor movement suffer as a result. Very little goes on in the way of remembering the sacrifices and victories of the labor movement in the United States. Unfortunately, many of the Labor Day Parades held around the country are little more than excuses to have a picnic & get loaded.
I'm so excited to be welcoming the AFL-CIO to Pittsburgh for its national convention. My friend Rich Trumka will assume the responsibility of leading labor through the difficult times ahead. In a movement that celebrates great oratory - with fantastically inspiring speakers like Cecil Roberts, RoseAnn DeMoro and Leo Gerard - Rich Trumka stands alone. Millions of workers across the country have been encouraged, inspired and ennobled by his words. He will be a great spokesperson for labor. And God knows we need one. But we need a lot more than talk. We need bold leadership. This Labor Day I want to talk about the workers at Vincent Bach in Elkhart, Indiana.
Elkhart, Indiana is the brass instrument capital of North America. If you or anyone you know ever played a tuba, trumpet, trombone or horn it was almost certainly made at Vincent Bach in Elkhart. Generations of students and professionals alike have played these quality instruments. Big band leaders regularly stopped by to visit (and jam with) their colleagues at Vincent Bach. Eventually the predominantly musician board of directors was replaced by profiteers and bean counters and the company sold several times. In 2006 the company posted a $63 million profit.
So it was quite a shock to the workers when the company came to the table demanding dramatic pay cuts, concessions, and the end of many work rules that made working at Vincent Bach a career instead of a job. Many of these workers are second and third generation employees. Many had decades of service to the company when the ultimatum was presented. The 230 member of UAW 394 voted to strike on April 1, 2006.
The company outsourced much of its production to China. They brought scabs into the plant. The strikers couldn't imagine how the company could afford to train scabs to make these instruments... but the Republican governor of Indiana appropriated almost $50,000 of tax dollars from the so-called "Skills Enhancement Fund" specifically to subsidize the training of the scabs, as part of a $1.1 million dollar package of taxpayer subsidies to this profitable union-busting corporate bad neighbor. The company engaged in multiple unfair labor practices, which the union filed charges on, but these take years to be adjudicated by the understaffed National Labor Relations Board.
In the meantime, the workers walked the picket line, and took their story to the community and to other unions. As the strike dragged on, those who could find other jobs and/or relocate did so. The remaining 130 workers were consigned to subsisting on $200 a week strike benefits. They were mostly folks with 20 or more years of service at Vincent Bach. Employment prospects at their age were slim to none. They hung tough, confident that the Labor Board would side with them and they would get their jobs back. Their options were limited by a number of factors. Unemployment in Elkhart is among the highest in the nation. There were no other jobs, and with real estate values tanking, moving wasn't a good option either.
On November 7, 2007 the scabs (no doubt at the company's behest) called for an election to decertify the United Auto Workers union. On Thursday, July 30th, 2009 an understaffed NLRB panel decertified the union, ending the strike. Part of the reason the union lost the election is because desperate strikers who liquidated their 401 (k) plans to survive during the strike were ruled inelegible to vote in the election! After 40 months of faithfully staffing the picket line, the loyal 130 workers of Vincent Bach/Conn Selmer have no union, no jobs, no benefits, and no recourse. That is just wrong.
$63 million dollars should have been enough profit for Vincent Bach. I believe that if Vincent Bach were locally owned, it undoubtedly would have been enough profit. Vincent Bach's profits didn't stay in Elkhart, or Indiana, and probably not even in the United States. The people making money from the work done in Elkhart don't give a rat's ass about Elkhart, Indiana - they don't give a rat's ass about anyone but themselves. We need to regulate corporate acqusitions more closely to stop this "race to the bottom."
The Vincent Bach plant is still operating, but the jobs there are no longer living wage jobs. Over 100 good workers left Elkhart during the strike... stranding elders, depleting the tax base, driving down property values as they sold quickly to relocate. The overburdened taxpayers of Elkhart will face more cuts to social services, more deterioration of the infrastructure, increased demand for social services. And Vincent Bach pays absolutely nothing in reparations for the damage they have done to this community. This kind of tragedy has been played out countless thousands of times in the United States. I've been an eyewitness to a lot of it. It's got to stop.
This Labor Day, we must commit ourselves to standing up for good, living wage jobs in this country, and around the world. We must rein in these greedy multinational corporations that ruthlessly shift capital around the globe (often with taxpayer subsidies), pillaging the planet and exploiting the poorest, weakest and most desperate among us. We can, and must, do better. Our parents and grandparents missed meals, risked (and sometimes sacrificed) their lives to bring us an 8 hour day, vacations, paid sick days, pensions, seniority, safety regulations, grievance procedures and the right to organize. These past few decades we have been spendthrift children - squandering this sacred inheritance in the name of "cooperation," "flexibility" and "teamwork." We must do better. This legacy, and what we can add to it, belongs to future generations.
(This Labor Day message is gratefully offered in tribute to the sacrifices and devotion of the members of UAW 394 - especially Don Wagner, Deneen Siegler, Ron Czarnecki... and the workers of Boilermakers 484, AFSCME 3494, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, United American Nurses, the Charleston Five, UE Republic Workers, UAW 174 at Hercules Drawn Steel, Local 459 OPEIU Nurses, AK Strikers, Delphi workers, Staley workers, Frontier Casino Strikers, and millions more who have struggled against this monstrous corporate greed.)
And a Labor Day salute to Kay Tillow, Jerry Tucker, David Newby, Shelley Kessler, Paul Bigman, Jeff Crosby, Turner Wright, Dave Johnson, John David, Rosemary Trump, Amy Newell, Ron Kaminkow, Barb Ingalls, Brian McWilliams, Angaza Laughinghouse, Karen Newman, Barbara Byrd, Dexter Arnold, Laura Griffin, Stan Swart, Mike Matejka, Amy Niehouse, David Elsila, Charlie McCollester, Rose Feurer, Nathanette Mayo, Judy Ancel, Robin Alexander, Henry Nicholas, Nick Molnar, Betsy Pernotto, Larry Daves, Ed Sadlowski (the elder and the younger!) and Julius Margolin (safe journey, dear comrade) for your tireless work for working people.