Wildcat At Fisher Body Uaw Picks Ford As Strike Target

Wildcat at Fisher Body

UAW Picks Ford as Strike Target

Union activity was heavy last week as the UAW named Ford Motor Company its strike target and workers at the General Motors Fisher Body-Fleetwood Plant staged a wildcat strike in protest of the alleged suspension of two union officials.

UAW President Leonard Woodcock announced the UAW strike target early last week and said there are presently no complicated problems standing in the way of a peaceful settlement by the strike deadline. The workers current 3-year contract expires Sept. 14.

The UAW picks one of the four major auto-makers as a strike get in order to force a pattern settlement in the contract negotiations. The target company must then come to agreement or face the prospect of its rivals producing cars while the target company is out on strike.

Ford, the second-largest automaker in the country, was last shut down in 1967, when the UAW struck for 66 days.

With Ford now the target, hard bargaining will cease at General Motors and Chrysler until a pattern settlement is reached.

Woodcock announced that main bargaining points in this year's negotiations are job and income security. He also said that boosting the Supplemental Unemployment Benefits (SUB) fund will be a continued demand.

"We have told them that they will have to negotiate the SUB problems," Woodcock said. "Our formula for SUB is on the table and it is an across-the-board demand."

The UAW strike fund stands at $175 million and is estimated to be large enough to last about 17 weeks at Ford.

Elsewhere on the strike front, 600 workers at the GM Fisher Body-Fleetwood Plant walked off their jobs August 26, halting assembly and idling a total of 3,140 workers at two southwest side plants.

Despite pleas from top union officials to-end the unauthorized strike, only 400 of 1,880 scheduled employees reported for work Friday morning, August 27.

The plant was back to full operation Monday with a company spokesperson saying there was no more than normal absentee rates. According to union officials, the walkout resulted from rumors that the company had suspended Rufus Coleman, local union president, and James Gabbard, a bargaining committee chairperson.

UAW Vice-President lrving Bluestone and Region IE Director Bard Young issued a joint statement saying the rumor was untrue.

Union officials explained that Coleman and Gabbard were given one-week paper suspensions for verbally and physically abusing a member of plant management.

A paper suspension means the suspensions would be put on the workers' records but neither man would actually lose time or pay.

The union also announced that the suspensions will be challenged through the accepted grievance procedure.

Coleman, the suspended president of UAW Local 15, spent part of Friday to little avail urging employees to return to work.

Woodcock expressed fears that the wildcat strike could foul progress at the national negotiations.

"The pressure of a strike deadline on a company is substantially reduced if they know everyone is going to be their own general and make their own plans," he told reporters.