No Justice, No Solidarity

Welcome to our website.

We are members of the  2007 Bargaining Committee for United Auto Workers (UAW) local 3520, Cleveland, NC. On April 2, 2007 our Local's Strike Committee voted to strike. Our International Union was of the opinion  we should accept a weak contract offer. They tried to force us to take a contract with 22 open articles and 86 open Health and Safety issues back to our membership for ratification. The proposed contract if raitified by our membership as proposed by the Company would have been the first UAW 2 tier contract negotiated in a grossly profitable company. Frieghtliner LLC, was more profitable in 2006 than all other years combined, yet they wanted us to take contract concessions and the International UAW was OK with this.

We are/were employed by Freightliner LLC, at the Freightliner Truck Manufacturing Plant in Cleveland, N.C. On April 3rd, 2007 (5) five of our Bargaining Committee members were terminated by our employer along with (5) five other officers and (1) one rank and file member of our Union for instigating and/or supporting and/or participating in an unauthorized work stoppage.  At the time of our terminations our collective bargaining agreement had expired. We thought our International Union would support us and do everything in their power to help us get reinstated to our jobs. What we didn't realize was that the UAW is actually a passive, Company ran Union that has no desire to help their members. Our International Union, has in fact, done nothing to help or support us in our struggle for justice. They have encouraged our membership to illegally suspend us from our positions as officers of our local and encouraged them to put us on trial for conduct unbecoming a Union member.

The UAW promised us help at our Unemployment hearing . They told us an attorney would represent us at the hearing. Luckily, we retained an Attorney ourselves. We arrived  at the hearing and our employer informed the special hearing commissioner that no Representative for the UAW would be there to assist us.

The other (5) five officers and the (1) one rank and file member of our Local that were terminated, were reinstated to their jobs in May but not before they were forced to sign Last chance, model employee agreements that don't give the Union any leeway in reference to disciplinary action. This type of agreement is commonly referred to as a  (stump your toe and out you go agreement)  as it is easy for the Employer to terminate an employee under this agreement. At the writing of this article (1) one of the (5) five reinstated officers has been terminated and at least (1) one of the (6) six is facing threats of termination.

We hope that by telling our story pressure will be placed on Freightliner, LLC and the International UAW to do the right thing (reinstate us to our jobs and have all vindictive actions by some members of our Local Union stopped). We have learned that what happened to us is a common occurrence within the UAW. We hope other Union and non Union workers gain knowledge from our struggle for justice that will help them succeed where we may have failed. We have been asked numerous times "If you could go back and change anything what would it be"? I have thought long and hard on this question. I guess the easiest answer would be: To have not been involved in the contract negotiations at all, but that is not the person I am. I am proud of what we tried to accomplish for our membership. We went into negotiations knowing what our membership wanted and had no intentions of settling for less. If the International UAW truly believed in the labor movement and solidarity  we would be back at work fighting for our membership as their elected officers of UAW Local 3520.

Join us on our Solidarity tour!  Our Mid-West tour was very successful. We would like to Thank all the Brothers and Sisters in Chicago Illinois, Champaign Illinois, Flint Michigan, Detroit Michigan , for participating in our meetings. We met some of the best people around. YOU GUYS ROCK!!!

SOLIDARITY FOREVER!

As of February  19, 2008 we are in the Bay area of California. We will be in L.A., Seattle Washington and Portland Oregon also...

www.justice4five.com/myPictures/midwest_tour.pdf

Read Statesville Record and Landmark article on Allen's Arrest at the link below:

www.justice4five.com/myPictures/UAW-kicks5.pdf

This is absolute madness! How can anyone claim to be in solidarity with you when they have you arrested for attending a Membership meeting.

To view captions click at bottom of slideshow presentation and click left side to turn on captions...