Roy Exum
Dennis Williams, who in 2016 tried desperately to infiltrate Chattanooga Volkswagen with union workers, has now retired from the cancerous United Auto Workers labor chattel. But as openly-worried UAW executives are lining up to sing clear-and-bright to federal agents in hopes of lighter sentences in a monumental union scandal, our boy Dennis has to be looking in the rear view mirror.
Williams, upon retirement, was given a stunning severance package that includes a lavish lake cottage with opulent fixtures on Black Lake, near Cheboygan in the upper part of the state.
Granite countertops, toney appliances – even a secret room to hide has just been built. To that end, everybody in the UAW world wanted to hide when it was revealed in page-one headlines across the state that the Williams’ shrine was actually built by non-union members – again you can’t make this up -- “because they were cheaper and just as good.”
Stop! Wipe away all you have just read about the UAW. Whoa, what is coming is so strong it is scary. You need to focus as hard as you can because for our VW rank-and-file to suddenly invite a gasping labor union inside its gates defies all imagination, any shred of common sense, and becomes a threat so great to our community it is painful even before it hurts. Don’t take it from me but think of a guy on the assembly line who has an autistic son, another who is caring for his dad, and a quality of life for your family in Tennessee. Some people at out VW plant are dancin’ with the devil.
This is beyond my comprehension…
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EXCERPT FROM THE MEMPHIS COMMERCIAL APPEAL (April 9, 2019) – “Five years after Tennessee political leaders resisted UAW efforts to unionize Volkswagen Chattanooga, plant workers have called for another union election. The United Auto Workers union lost its 2014 bid to represent autoworkers in the East Tennessee plant. This time, autoworkers sense a union-friendly White House, a new governor in Nashville and a rising desire on the plant floor for a voice in VW Chattanooga.
"This was a decision made by the Chattanooga workers," said Brian Rothenberg, spokesman for the Detroit-based union. “The members have taken it into their own hands.” A group of Chattanooga VW employees filed a petition Tuesday with the National Labor Relations Board calling for the plant's production and maintenance workers to vote on April 29 and April 30. About 1,700 employees are eligible to vote.
“In the 2014 vote, VW workers rejected the union on a 712-626 vote that surprised many automotive analysts. Before the election, executives at Volkswagen, which operates unionized plants throughout the world, had quietly endorsed the UAW.”
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EXCERPT FROM THE DETROIT FREE PRESS (March 2019) – “GM is in the process of idling five North American plants, including Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly and Warren Transmission in Michigan. It ended production last week in Lordstown, Ohio. The UAW is suing over the Lordstown closure, and Unifor, the Canadian autoworker union, is waging a bitter campaign over the scheduled closure of Oshawa Assembly in Ontario.”
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EXCERPT FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS (March 3, 2019) -- TOLEDO, Ohio — Hundreds of workers at four General Motors plants slated to close this year are facing a painful choice: Take the company's offer to work at another factory — possibly hundreds of miles away — even if that means leaving behind their families, their homes and everything they've built. Or stay and risk losing their high-paying jobs.
The automaker says nearly all of its blue-collar U.S. workers with jobs in jeopardy have work waiting for them. Many from the targeted factories in Michigan, Ohio and Maryland already have voluntarily transferred to plants in the Midwest and South, not wanting to take a chance.
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EXCERPT FROM THE DETROT FREE PRESS (March 12, 2019) – from the Toledo, Ohio, bureau— Hundreds of workers at four General Motors plants slated to close this year are facing a painful choice: Take the company's offer to work at another factory — possibly hundreds of miles away — even if that means leaving behind their families, their homes and everything they've built. Or stay and risk losing their high-paying jobs.
The automaker says nearly all of its blue-collar U.S. workers with jobs in jeopardy have work waiting for them. Many from the targeted factories in Michigan, Ohio and Maryland already have voluntarily transferred to plants in the Midwest and South, not wanting to take a chance.
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EXCERPT FROM THE DETROIT FREE PRESS (March 11, 2019) – “UAW President Gary Jones announced Monday that worker strike pay has increased from $200 to $250 a week effective immediately, as more than 900 union leaders gathered on Day 1 of the union’s bargaining convention at Cobo Center in Detroit.
The union that represents about 156,000 autoworkers employed by General Motors, Ford Motor Co., and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles will begin negotiating new contracts this summer.
“Activism and solidarity, that is what secures our power,” Jones told a cheering crowd. “The stakes are high. We are ready,” Jones said to a standing ovation. “We are ready to gear up and fight for what is right. We are ready to fight for our brothers and sisters and act as one.”
He noted that weekly strike pay will jump to $275 a week in January 2020 … (It is believed that a vehicle manufactured on a union assembly line will cost almost $1,000 more than a similar vehicle built on a non-union plant. The difference? The UAW represents about 400,000 workers but also must support 700,000 retirees)
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WHEN NISSAN WAS OPENING its plant in Canton., Miss., it is said: In one organizing drive, a Northerner and a Southerner learned Southern workers could use some “flahrs.” The Northerner showed up the next day with fliers. They went untaken and unread. The Southerner showed up with carnations. They were quickly snapped up.