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Whirlpool Warns Workers to Skip Friday Rally
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In an internal newsletter at Whirlpool Corp.’s Evansville, Ind., plant, Paul Coburn, vice president of Whirlpool’s Evansville Division, says the decision to close the plant and kill 1,100 jobs will not be reconsidered and warns workers about attending a Friday rally protesting the shutdown:
…these negative activities will only hamper employees when they look for future jobs….We fear that potential employers will view the actions of a few and determine whether they would want to hire any of Evansville Division employees in the future.
You can read more about Coburn’s memo on The Huffington Post here.
Show solidarity with the Whirlpool workers, 900 of whom are members of IUE-CWA Local 808, by signing an online petition urging Whirlpool to reverse its decision and Keep It Made in America: Save Our Jobs. Click here to add your name to nearly 40,000 who already have signed the petition.
Despite Coburn’s letter, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will join Whirlpool workers at the Evansville plant Feb. 26 to deliver the petitions. The workers then will march from the plant to the IUE-CWA Local 808 union hall for a rally, where Trumka, workers and union and community leaders will speak.
In his letter to workers, Coburn unabashedly delivers a backhanded compliment to the workers, saying:
In the last six months we have delivered strong results in spite of having to see a good deal of our equipment taken out of the building and moved to its new location. I believe that it is a testament to your character that you have continued to work hard to preserve the positive reputation of the Evansville workforce during this period.
Says IUE-CWA President Jim Clark:
Whirlpool is a bad corporate citizen who is twisting this country’s desire to reduce energy usage and using it to export jobs. We are pushing hard to ensure that good intentions on going green don’t help fund loss of good manufacturing jobs.
Local 808 President Darrell Collins says:
Americans are sick of companies turning a blind eye to what is happening out there. They need to tell Whirlpool to act responsibly.
Whirlpool had revenues of more than $4.8 billion in the past quarter alone. The company also recently received $19 million as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: Yet, the company is spending $110 million to build a new plant in Mexico.
The local received no advance notice of the closing announcement and had no opportunity to try to save the plant, Collins says. In the past, workers have accepted reduced wages and embraced cost-saving lean manufacturing techniques to save jobs.
Whirlpool sells the refrigerators, which have freezers on the top, under the Amana, Roper, Maytag, KitchenAid and Kenmore brand names.
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19 Comments
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I CAN REMEMBER WHEN MOST THINGS WERE MADE IN AMERICA , NOW WE HAVE SPECIAL INTEREST ALONG WITH LOBBYIST BUYING VOTES FROM CONGRESS AND THE U S SENATE TO SHIP JOBS AND MANUFACTURING OVER SEAS FOR MORE PROFIT , ITS WAHT I CALL AND MANY OTHERS SELLING OUT AMERICA. ITS CONGRESS, U S SENATE , LOBBYIST ALONG WITH SPECIAL INTEREST AND THE PRESIDENT AS THE SALES MAN … WHAT DO AMERICANS GET OUT OF IT NO JOBS , MEANINGFUL JOBS LOST OVERSEAS , 125,000 FOREIGN BORN WORKEWRS WITH WORK PERMITS TAKING AMERICAN JOBS , LOWERING OUR STANDARD OF LIFE ALONG WITH ILLEGALS , THATS THE NEW AMERICAN DREAM FOR AMERICANS , ALONG WITH THE BIG SNOW JOB AND LOTS AND LOTS OF NEW TAXES , HA HA , OUE WE STUPID OR WHAT … BEND OVER AMERICA
Sounds like Maytag/Whirpool event in Local 997 Newton Iowa all over again. Tactic -use your money and high priced legal staff to take as much as you can no matter what the cost to your workers.We too received no advance notice of many special events. Such as a sixty dollar per month increase per member insurance cost to retired with Whirpool medical insurance. Our local is in your conner belive me. And have sent this article to many of my friends as possiable. Whirpool just received 6.5 million from the Iowa tax funds to improve their Iowa Amama plant in which I would guess they will pedal to the highest bidder in the near future.As you know Whirpool bought Maytag then sold out its employees in the name of Corp greed and profit. These are my personal thoughts only but my fellow empoyees will agree with me I am sure.Mant large Corp’s are doing the sane thing in the USA. If you have enough money and legal reps in and around the USA court systems the laws ment to protect the working class folks will not stand in your way. Our legal system and Corp greed both SUCK !!! When we have no money left who will buy their products then ( their out of USA workers drawing near nothing wages , I don’t think so ).
I am a retired Maytag worker. Had over35 years and reitred under our 30 and out. When I and 3000 other retirees did retire we had full, “dollar one” coverage and no co-pay, no deductable, and no outof pocket maximum. WE PAID NOTHING for this coverage.
When Whirlpool bought Maytag it did not take them long to begin giving our retirees the shaft.
In 2008 we were informed that they were going to put us on their 80/20 plan with us paying $170.42 peer person per month. Then they increased our premium $60.00 per person per month for 2010.
They done this even though our contract language stated we had the health insruance we had when we retired with for life.
Our case in in the court system with lawsuits filed by both the company and union.
I do know what you are going though and my heart goes out to you. Keep an eye out , because Whirlpool will cut your throat in the name of profit. They are greedy #@@%&**.
Good Luck
People in America have got to smarten up and start doing the things that will bring unbearable pressure to these traitor companies that offshore our jobs,while receiving tax cuts in the process.Unions,along with american workers in general,need to be marching on Washington,by the millions,setting up boycotts of businesses and products and also moving their savings out of the monopolized banks.
We need to use our leverage of 15 million members to force our spineless representatives to do the work of the other 98% of us.
If the unions started moving all of its members retirement and pension money out,and put it into the credit unions,that would be a great start.
NO LONGER WOULD PEOPLE HAVE TO WORK TO HAVE HEALTH CARE
The government has kept reform off the table by not including Single Payer as a public option.
More and more people now realize this and will not settle for what crumbs the government will throw our way.
Why couldn’t we have reform?….
A single payer, Medicare for All-type system would have sent an earthquake through the Labor structure of our country.
NO LONGER WOULD PEOPLE HAVE TO WORK TO HAVE HEALTH CARE.
Wages would have become a negotiating point for unions and their members instead of the fine details of insurance carriers and premiums.
There are literally thousands of Americans working to have health care, accepting low wages to be able to go to the doctor for themselves or their children.
Single payer would have dissolved this contract overnight.
Break down state restrictions on across state line insurance shopping and start a union owned and run insurance plan and watch our rates go down and coverages get better.
It amazes me that the outcry is not greater. Where is the Jobless March on Washington? They did it back in the Great Depression, people from all over America and they camped in DC. This might get the politicians attention. Why are people just sitting back and taking this?
The government needs to use its eminent domain power and take Whirlpool over. It is an urgent public interest to keep jobs and manufacturing in the U.S. That will send the right message to the traitorous corporations that shift production overseas to get cheaper labor and increase their profits at the expense of the American people.
whirpool this is a very powerful global, is considered by the vast majority of people in the United States as the brand most demanding, and can not think that such events do to stop supporting people through their labor realize that the brand established itself as the best, hopefully by the fact that the situation is still not the best, whirlpool achieve that health care in the world to expand and benefit millions of people including a employees, we hope to reconsider its decisions for the benefit of the company. in findrxonline indicate that this company supports beneficial to health care and believe that this time is no exception.
The government should use its power of eminent domain and take Whirlpool over. It is in the urgent public interest to stop further loss of jobs and manufacturing. That will send the right message to the corporate traitors who abandon their country in pursuit of higher profits.
I can’t be in Evansville on Friday, but I’ll be standing in solidarity with those men and women. They’re the latest in a long, long line of American workers who’ve worked hard, lived by the rules — and been rewarded for it with a good, swift kick in the butt. They did everything they could to export the good jobs, bust up the unions and scare the Hell out of the few people who still have a job to go to. Godspeed, Local 808. You’ve got a lot of people pulling for you — and contrary to what Whirlpool’s greedy bosses say, if any employer wants a good, solid, dedicated worker who really CARES about his or her job, they’d be LUCKY to hire you all.
Americans are such sheep when they get the shaft they bend over to get screwed. First, take back the stimulous money! Join in solidarity to boycott the Mexican products all across our country until the Govt puts back protective tariffs to protect American jobs and tell the politicians we won’t work for thier campaigns or give them money until they show they’re for “we the people” and not the International Corporatists.
“Negroes in the United States read the history of labor and find it mirrors their own experience. We are confronted by powerful forces telling us to rely on the good will and understanding of those who profit by exploiting us [...] They are shocked that action organizations, sit-ins, civil disobedience and protests are becoming our everyday tools, just as strikes, demonstrations and union organization became yours to insure that bargaining power genuinely existed on both sides of the table [...] Our needs are identical to labor’s needs: decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures [...] That is why the labor-hater and labor-baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth.”
– Dr. Martin Luther King, “If the Negro Wins, Labor Wins”, December 11, 1961
I agree with all of you!
Dear Readers, and employees at whirlpool
I will start by saying we here in America have or selfs in some way to blame but organize and unite we as a whole moving in one body togather can change the actions set in motion here at home. But what it will take is someone that is willing to stand as a voice for the movement that must take place here in America and now. There is no good reason our jobs should be allowed to leave this country what do you think or not so distant past relatives would of done to these jobs attempting to ship these products back in to the states to sale when at one time they was made here they would turn this garbage around or dump it in the ocean. Im here in Missouri and it makes me sick to see whats happening to or America This Change you can believe in has been a night mare none of us needed. Its time for us to unite and take care of or people here at home. No we or not a third world country, No we will not take a back seat to no one no where at no time, Our fore fathers fought and died for this freedom that the big wigs just toss to the curb without any regards to whom it may hurt. I need to here from you all out there and need to know if that feeling that I have is the echoe that we hear from our past please write me let me know take a stand and stand hand in hand for our home land our America and our childrens future your brother in missouri william bill dixon 304 watts street parkhills missouri 63601 local 876 This post is to all that will copy me and pass me everywhere across america
You all get it, everyone on this thread so far. I’m not a union member neither is anyone in my family, I’m 23, and guess what I completely agree with every sentiment/statement made.
Although I say Union first, American made seconed, the fact is:
-Nothing union made comes from Mexico or China
-Despite the moronic belief from brainwashed idiots, I’ve yet to see one product made from union workers in the USA that wasn’t significantly better quality than it’s scab made counterpart. (Recent events prove this.)
-Despite moronic propaganda, union ops. tend to employ more U.S. workers NOT less.
One example is auto jobs:
http://www.levelfieldinstitute.org/fact_kit.html
It’s ridiculously obvious that these latest action by Whirlpool is just another gradual step to close as many remaining union plants as they can without slowing necessary production.
From what I can gather Whirlpool’s U.S. facilities are Fort Smith, Arkansas (USW,) Evansville, Indiana (IUE,) Amana, Iowa (IAMAW,) Tulsa, Oklahoma (not union) Ohio (Clyde, Findlay, Greenville and Marion) (not union,) and Cleveland, Tennessee (IBB I think…)
Perhaps it’s true, “the working class and the employing class have nothing in common”. The wage system, with healthcare as a part of it, is simply a control mechanism. We see the same scenario over and over throughout history. When will we learn we have been indoctrinated so well we actually believe that we can only maintain our position as economic serfs if we make the bosses rich and don’t do anything to upset the apple cart. It appears the political system is just another tool for maintaining the status quo, too. We have seen very few bills passed that truly benefit the workers. I think a workers (employed or unemployed) march may be part of what we need. WE ARE THE SLEEPING GIANT THEY FEAR WILL BE AWAKENED.
I’ve added his sorry butt to the wall of shame and if we would all chip in 5.00, we could fire him and every other corporate executive that is destroying America and everything we stand for similar to what I wrote about here
http://keepamericaatwork.com/?p=6779
and here
http://keepamericaatwork.com/?p=6770
Best of luck to you poor folks as I’ve done been through it and lost everything and these sorry damned corporate executives can kiss my ???
Virgil
http://www.KeepAmericaAtWork.com
Dear American Workers ( VOTERS!!)
Where are oue elected officials, sworn to work for the voters.
This is a travisty, one side says we must create jobs, the other does nothing to stop this exodus of workers jobs.
The lobbists seem to control our county ( which seems to be available to the highest bidder (giver).
Our Congress and the Senate has no problem solving their retirement and health care woes. I SAY THEY SHOULD ALL BE FORCED TO LIVE UNDER OUR RULES OF SOCAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE-AID!!
THEY EVEN VOTE THEMSELVES RAISES! (At our expense)
Maybe then, they would WAKE-UP and fix things for all Americans.
If they won’t step up and help the American worker, then we need to replace them all! Election time isn’t that far off.
Lets get people in who will work for Americans!
Angelo
Indiana Steel worker
I truly believe their interests are only about them and
The Right Wing Facist Bastards are at it again !!! I’m beginning to think that hell is to good of a place for these SOB’s. We are going to be the next 3rd world country if any more jobs are shipped out. I guess the thing that disturbs me the most is “Where is the Outrage” ? Everyone is like a sheep being let to the slaughter and not doing a damn thing about it. One thing we still have is the right to vote most of these bastards out of office, so let’s do it, quit voting for thr same ole, same ole. Bounce them out on their fat complacent asses into the street and let them try to find a real job !