Thanks to good leadership and a little luck, we can report that Local 848 is coping well. We have stable finances and a growing membership at a time when other local unions are being forced to take giant concessions or even shut down. Taking a broad view of labor's situation, I want to urge everyone to develop their own methods for finding out what's true and what's not in a world where misinformation is rampant.
The top levels of our government have no regard for truth. They endorse using
TV propaganda that is made up to look like "news." They hand-pick
their audiences. They bribe columnists, they intimidate reporters, and they
had at least one stooge lobbing easy questions at White House press conferences.
A person might figure out what's going on from corporate-controlled "news"
agencies, but requires reading between the lines.
Members should check sources and evaluate them for yourselves, but I will recommend www.uaw.org, www.aflcio.org, and other labor web pages. The Texas AFL-CIO provides the best e-mail labor news in the state. Write to Ed@texasaflcio.org and tell him "UAW 848" to get on his list. Sills is pictured at right in his Austin office.
Ron Spurlock, CAP rep for our area, will also send to you on request. There's no better way to check out rumors than by coming to our union hall and asking.
It's going to take some work, and it's going to get harder rather than easier. As Ed Sills recently published, it is clear that the government intends to break organized unions. U.S. Representative David Bonior is quoted: "It's not a conspiracy. They're very open. [Key conservative Republican strategist] Grover Norquist says they want to get rid of unions, to break the labor movement." Both Mussolini and Hitler broke the labor unions early in their drives to power. The new accounting rules imposed on unions are clearly part of such an attempt here in America.
We can win our coming battles if we are strong and well armed with information. Please seek it out!
--Gene