jol
December 17, 1970
THE CAROLINA JOURNAL
Page 5
A black worker
punctures the torment
, y » ■ rr«T» gyroTr»Trrrrrrrrrr»TYyrrrrnry»Ti^Tyrrrrig
by mike mcculley
DETROIT (LNS) — A hot
afternoon in the middle of July.
Two foremen and a jobsetter lie
dead. James Johnson, conveyor
loader, Dept. 78, the Brake Shoe
Dept., Eldon Avenue Gear and
Axle Plant, Chrysler Corporation,
tosses his M-1 carbine aside
saying, “I’m satisfied,” and walks
down the aisles of the plant to the
company guard shack where the
Detroit police take him prisoner,
charged with murder.
Hundreds of workers stood in
the aisles in’ surrounding
departments, thinking about the
shootings they had just witnessed.
Company officials ordered all
lines immediately started, but the
workers did not move. Orders
came down for several
departments to go home early.
The workers left.
represent Local 961.’’
♦ 4c 4:
The UAW always opposes
wildcat strikes because they
threaten its control over the
workers in the plants, and
their fore threaten the UAW
leadership’s tacit pact with the
auto companies to trade
uninterrupted production for
dollar benefits. This leaves
working conditions up to the
corporations and toothless union
locals.
each day they walk through the
gates. In Dept. 72 there is an inch
and a half of oil covering the floor
and slopping up over the soles of
the workers’ shoes.
FLASHBACK: May 3. Armed
with the injunction. Local 961
officers and high-level UAW
representatives order Eldon
workers back to work without
insisting the fired stewards first be
Eldon’s entire ventilation
system is inoperative. The jitney
trucks have no brakes, lop-sided
tires, no horns and no lights. The
aisleways are blocked by skid
boxes, axles and scrap iron. Drill ,
presses, cutters and grinders have
no safety guards. Working
conditions are so bad at Eldon
that Chrysler has taken the
unusual step of appointing a
number of black foremen for the
slight cooling effect that
produces.
Groups of worried and shaken
foremen gathered on Lynch Road.
ELRUM (Eldon Revolutionary
Union Movement, a division of
the League of Revolutionary
Black Workers) leafleted the plant
the next day approving of
Johnson’s action. Black workers
dug the leaflet, an ELRUM
member reported. Many workers
^were saying things like “This even
things up,” “Everyone has to die
sometime,” and “They won’t be
so fast to write people up now.”
FLASHBACK: April 16. The
second shift, Johnson’s shift,
wildcats when Chrysler fires a.
black worker who argued with-his
foreman, and refuses to discipline
the white supervisor who had
picked up a pinion gear and told
the worker: “I’ll bash your brains
out.” After two days, the United
Auto Workers Local 961, which
serves the workers at Eldon, gets
cold feet and orders everybody
back to work.
reinstated. A. second strike has
failed. The workers have seen
their strongest, most aggressive
stewards tossed into the street.
Without their stewards, they are
completely at the mercy of their
foremen and Chrysler. Morale is
low. Chrysler is beaming.
FLASHBACK: May 1. The
plant is shut down by another
wildcat, protesting Chrysler’s
summary firing of 14 stewards for
organizing the first wildcat.
Stewards are the foot-soldiers of
the union, directly responsible to
small groups of workers, serving as
their first line of defense against
the company.
Chrysler obtains a quick and
easy injunction against the second
wildcat with only token
opposition from a UAW attorney,
who at one point is heard to say
to the judge: “I only vaguely
FLASHBACK: Th- early weeks
of June. Some of the stewards get
their jobs back by signing an
agreement to be fired if there’s
ever another walkout on the
second shift. One of the stewards
refuses at first, but agrees after
he’s told that he’d never get back
into the plant without signing.
The stewards have many years of
seniority to protect, and some
would be hard-pressed to get
another job at that age. Chrysler
knows that.
Eldon Ave. Gear and Axle Plant
is so unsafe that all of its 4500
employees are risking their lives
DATA PROCESSING
MARKET REPRESENTATIVE
Here is an opportunity to earn money in your free ttme.
Processing Corp., an estabUshed data processing service hu^au, wllprovi*
you with the materials, training and guidance to sell much needed dat
processing service. You will earn commission for one year on each contract
you sell. As a representative of I.D.P. you will make contacts in ywr
business community; you will work ivith ® „
When you have developed a prospect, a professional
close the sale. Your share is 15% of the sales contract and a ^ekfy
expense allowance for travel. If you are interested m this type of rare
Opportunity, contact::
Personnel Director
Independent Data Processing Corp.
Box 10234
Raleigli, N. C. 27605
(919) 834-0751 (collect)
Eldon is far closer to a medieval
sweatshop than one could ever
imagine after taking in the
standard dosage of tidy, clean-cut
Chrysler ads over the tube. But
Eldon, not the ads, is the reality
of Chrysler.
FLASHBACK: May 13. Mamie
Williams, a black woman with 26
years seniority, dies after being
carried out of the plant on a
stretcher. Her own doctors had
ordered her to bed, but Chrysler’s
medics, although they noted her
high blood pressure, gave her
notice to return to work or be
fired. A few days later she is dead.
FLASHBACK: May 25. Thtee
tons of scrap steel fall off a
fork-lift truck so unsafe it should
have been scrapped long ago. Gary
Thompson, a 22-year-old Vietnam
vet, is crushed beneath. Local 961
and Chrysler both send their boys
to the funeral, but Local 961 is as
unwilling to fight for the safety
rules that would have prevented
Gary Thompson’s death as
Chrysler is to implement them.
* * *
power
(continued from page 3)
concerted. They come in constant
contact with the problems of the
university and are able to hear
students’ complaints and
suggestions and understand the
issues.
The inevitable confrontation
between the dorm students and
. . .once upon a time He came for a brief visit that
lingered afterwards.
— starliglrt, in search of the lost planet. . .
He brouglit with Him several nice sayings that can yet
be seen or heard or read
on certain days
usually.
— standing, on the threshold of a dream, an invisible
native sonless Adam swims the deep blue clear wet sea
without touching the water. ..
That day is remembered
with material unthoughtfulness
with unfulfilling feasting
with manunkind
patting his own hunched back unbrotherhood
on the back. ’
— Godlessly, a potential angel molds waxen wings to lift
himself heavenward ; the Icarian odyssey begun in past
first-mornings begins the fireball failure of plummeting
into the stick-surrounded sea of blind sight. . .
Winter wonderworld waltz
•He orchestrated
is daily performed on the dim-lit stage
without benefit of a drummer.
— A tonedeaf listener
in coat and tails
attending an opera
like a phantom
hearing the silent symphony
■in a foreign language
of his nativeless land.
The pattern is clear. Intimidate
tire union until the stewards are
afraid to aggressively represent
workers on the floor of the plant.
Lay off workers and speed up the
lines to save profits in a time of
inflation. Step up the threats,
suspensions and firings of all
workers who object to being
pushed around. Eventually, high
union officials will blink whatever
the abuses. By this time, the
plushness of their own offices will
rival management’s own.
Dorm
students
are the
WHAT WILL YOU GET HER THIS CHRISTMAS—
(>REGNANT??
Don’t. We've made it easy for you to get men’s contraceptives
privately. We’re a nonprofit agency and we offer quality con
doms—nationally known and luxury Imports—through the privacy
of the mails. We have British brands which are superior to any
thing at the corner drugstore. And. in keeping with the season
we’ve put together the world’s first gift sampler of men's con
traceptives. It contains three each of seven different brands in a
handsome, tasteful package for only $9.50. Giv* yourself a little
variety or give a friend something unique: PSI’s exclusive con
traceptive sampler.
POPULATION SERVICES, INC.
105 N. Columbia St., Dept. GS , Chapel Hill, N. C. 27514
Gentlemen; Please send me:
gift samplers in a plain wrapper at $9.50 each (remittance
enclosed)
-complete information about your services at no obligation
I understand that I may return any PSI products if I am not
satisfied with their quality for a full refund.
Name-
Address-
qty . . u
Can we send a gift in your name? I
State.
Zip-
the commuter, which Abernathy
warns against, is from the dorm
student’s viewpoint, a
fantasy....Any commuter that
cares enough about the politics
and social activity of the school
can make the extra effort to
become involved and in all
probablity there will be no power
collection of dorm students
blocking his admittance or
refusing his help. But the force of
power should remain where it
does the most good, and that is
with the dorm student. The
,1'
average commuter comes to class,
maybe eats a meal in the Union,
goes to a cduple of ballgames
during the year, and this becomes
the extent of his involvement with
the school.
For all practical purposes tlie
dorm student is the University.
They provide the lifeblood of
UNCe Without them the
campus would become another
Central Piedmont Community
College lacking a real identity and
just another learning factory
Bill Holder
I
Ij'i
j|