Occupy Wall Street: UAW recently endorsed, but prepared for it ahead of time

Screen Snip from a video featured at The Blaze shows a labor union supporter attacking Charles Payne’s position on self-reliance. Labor supporters build their argument around the thesis no one really succeeds on his own. One example is the argument that for you to succeed, you had to drive on a road others built and paid for or use institutions built collectively. Where the argument fails: those who succeed fund most of the tax revenue in this country. Progressives want the majority of wealth controlled by government, a system that has never delivered the social justice they claim to seek. The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America—commonly called the UAW—officially endorsed Occupy Wall Street on Wednesday.

However, the UAW had prepared for such protests far in advance.

In the March-April issue of the group’s magazine Solidarity, UAW said, “A global movement is mounting.”

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UAW says labor union activists ‘central’ to protests in East

Map of Tunisia and surrounding area. [CIA World Factbook; US Govnmt.]The United Auto Workers said labor unions were “central to the protests” in Tunisia, and “Egyptian Labor gave the decisive push” in driving Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak from office. UAW made the claims in the union magazine Solidarity*.

UAW is pushing for global organization of workers as part of an international social justice plan to address globalization.

“Unions are essential for social justice,” said the magazine. UAW also claims unions spurred the creation of a middle class in the United States and world organization is now the goal. “The UAW must act in solidarity with all unions around the world to create a global middle class.”

In the same issue UAW announced the creation of the Global Organizing Institute (GOI) within the National Organizing Department. The goal of the GOI is to “promote the right to organize” as part of the broader goal of creating “a global middle class.”

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As complex NUMMI partnership fades, is Toyota left holding the GM bag?

by Kay B. Day

This antique beauty snapped at a car show in Jacksonville was built at a time when a car was a car. [Photo by Kay B. Day]NUMMI seemed like a good idea. GM was about to close a plant and a partnership with Toyota seemed like a solution. In the 1980s, had Toyota not come along, the Fremont plant would’ve likely ceased to operate. Now Toyota wants out, and American workers will feel the bite.

Protests and petition drives by union members are underway after Toyota announced the closing of New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc., plant in Fremont, Calif. The Japanese car maker’s contract with NUMMI ends April 1.

 In the March/April 2010 issue of ‘Solidarity,’ the magazine for UAW members [The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America], a feature story described protests that included members who “took their message to the Japanese Embassy in Washington on Jan. 28.”

A study by California state officials found 25,000 jobs will be lost when the plant closes. Solidarity puts the figure higher, projecting losses of 4,500 Local 2244 members, and “up to 50,000 supplier and support workers, including hundreds of members of UAW Local 76.

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