State of the Union August 29, 2013

August 29, 2013 online at www.uawlocal2250.com

It is unfortunate that we are working extended overtime hours to make up for the lost production from the 12-hour breakdown in trim Tuesday. However, these hours will eliminate the need to work this Saturday and ruin the holiday weekend. Management has the contractual right as defined in the National Agreement, page 239, par. 12, which covers emergencies. One of the definitions of an emergency is “single breakdowns of four hours or more”. It further states that these overtime hours are “limited to production lost as the result of the single breakdowns”, which was 235 units. At the start of first shift today, the plant still needed to make up 143 more units, having made up 92 yesterday. On a related note, the Union and management have had discussions about ways to equalize overtime between the shifts.

Reminder: Friday, Aug. 30 is a VR blackout day. Tuesday, Sept. 3 is a VR blackout day and a holiday pay qualifying day.

More than 100 years after the first Labor Day observance, there is still some doubt as to who first proposed the holiday for workers. Some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day to honor those "who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold." But many believe that Matthew Maguire, a machinist, and later the secretary of Local 344 of the International Association of Machinists in Paterson, N.J., proposed the holiday in 1882 while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York. What is clear is that the Central Labor Union adopted a Labor Day proposal and appointed a committee to plan a demonstration and picnic. The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, 1883. In 1884 the first Monday in September was selected as the holiday, as originally proposed, and the Central Labor Union urged similar organizations in other cities to follow the example of New York and celebrate a "workingmen's holiday" on that date. The idea spread with the growth of labor organizations, and in 1885 Labor Day was celebrated in many industrial centers of the country. The first governmental recognition came through municipal ordinances passed during 1885 and 1886. From them developed the movement to secure state legislation. The first state bill was introduced into the New York legislature, but the first to become law was passed by Oregon on February 21, 1887. During the year four more states — Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York — created the Labor Day holiday by legislative enactment. By the end of the decade Connecticut, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania had followed suit. By 1894, 23 other states had adopted the holiday in honor of workers, and on June 28 of that year, Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September of each year a legal holiday in the District of Columbia and the territories.

From Chairman Mike Bullock: Fifty years ago yesterday, one of the greatest speeches in American history was delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington DC. But there was another great speech delivered that day – by UAW President Walter Reuther:
Brother Randolph, fellow Americans and friends, I am here today with you because with you I share the view that the struggle for civil rights and the struggle for equal opportunity are not the struggle of Negro Americans alone, but a struggle in which every American must join. For 100 years the Negro people have searched for first-class citizenship and I believe that they cannot and should not wait until some distant tomorrow. They should demand freedom now – here and now. It is the responsibility of every American to share the impatience of the Negro American and we need to join together, to march together, and to work together until we bridge the moral gap between American democracy’s noble promises and its ugly practices in the field of civil rights. American democracy has been too long on pious platitudes, and too short on practical performance in this important area.
One of our problems is that we suffer from what I call too much high octane hypocrisy in America. There is a lot of noble talk about brotherhood; then some Americans drop the “brother” and keep the “hood.”
To me the civil rights question is a moral question which transcends partisan politics and this rally today should be the first step in a total effort to mobilize the moral conscience of America and to ask the people in Congress of both parties to rise above their partisan differences and enact civil rights legislation now. President Kennedy has offered a comprehensive but moderate bill. That bill is the first meaningful step. It needs to be strengthened; it needs FEPC and other stronger provisions. The job question is crucial because we will not solve the problems of education or housing, or public accommodations as long as millions of American Negroes are treated as second class economic citizens. As one American I take the position, if we can have full employment and full production for the negative ends of war, then why can’t we have a job for every American, seeking the pursuit of peace. And so our slogan has got to be “fair employment” – but fair employment within the framework of full employment so that every American can have a job. I am for civil rights as a matter of human decency, as a matter of common morality. But, I am also for civil rights because I believe that freedom is an indivisible value; that no one can be free unto himself. And when “Bull” Connor with his police dogs and fire hoses destroys freedom in Birmingham, he is destroying my freedom in Detroit.
Let us keep in mind since we are the strongest of the free nations of the world, since we cannot make our freedom secure excepting as we make freedom universal so all may enjoy its blessings, let us understand that we cannot defend freedom in Berlin so long as we deny freedom in Birmingham. This rally is not the end, it’s the beginning. It’s the beginning of a great moral crusade to arouse Americans to the unfinished work of democracy. The Congress has to act, and after they act, we have much work to do in the vineyards of modern democracy in every community. Men of good will must join together. Men of all races, creed and color and persuasion are motivated by the spirit of human brotherhood. We must search for answers in the light of reason through rational and responsible action. Because if we fail, the vacuum of our failure will be filled by the apostles of hatred, who will search in the dark of night, and reason will yield to riot, and brotherhood will yield to bitterness and bloodshed, and we will tear asunder the fabric of our American democracy.
So let this be the beginning of the crusade to mobilize the moral conscience of America so that we can win freedom and justice and equality and first-class citizenship for every American, not just certain Americans – not only in certain parts of America, but in every part of America – from Boston to Birmingham, from New York to New Orleans, and from Michigan to Mississippi. Thank You.

Tom Brune
UAW/GM Communications Coordinator
Wentzville Assembly
636-327-2119