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Community to Rally for Laid-Off Whirlpool Workers
Members of the Evansville, Ind., community will come together Thursday afternoon to support the first group of laid-off Whirlpool workers. Some 500 of the workers will walk out of the plant Friday for the last time and head to the unemployment line as their jobs are shipped away to Mexico.
Just as they did last month, union members and community and religious activists will rally behind the workers to show that the layoffs will have serious consequences for the entire area.
Last month, more than 5,500 workers and community and religious activists from at least six states converged in front of the Whirlpool plant, led by members of IUE-CWA Local 808, to deliver the message to “Keep It Made in America.” But the company, which received millions in federal stimulus money, moved ahead with its plan to abandon U.S. workers and send 1,100 production jobs to a new plant in Mexico.
On the AFL-CIO’s Good Jobs Now website, Whirlpool workers say this kind of corporate greed is destroying the American economy. Tom Wright, who is two years into Whirlpool’s four-year electrical apprenticeship program, now finds himself “halfway to nowhere.” He issues this warning to workers everywhere:
The Whirlpool plant’s closure in Evansville should be a wake-up to the rest of the country. This is not just happening to us—you may be next.
Joanne Wallace, a 19-year worker at Whirlpool, wonders what U.S. jobs will remain for her grandchildren:
Will they be able to stay in Evansville and find work? Where is our community headed? I am sad to see Whirlpool go and extremely apprehensive about the future.
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6 Comments
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how about giving us a little more notice about these rallys Not a day before or the day of…some of us are out of work with limited income and need to plan such events
The following two stories are related to the above story of companies shutting down as jobs are either eliminated or move offshore to Mexico or China.
Full article here:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/mar2010/unem-m23.shtml
Unemployment on the rise in virtually every US urban area
By Hiram Lee
23 March 2010
A new report from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) sheds new light on the unemployment crisis facing hundreds of urban areas in the United States. According to the report, released March 19, the unemployment rates in a staggering 363 out of 372 metropolitan areas were higher in January than they were a year before.
Thirty-five metropolitan areas registered official jobless rates of 15 percent, placing them well above the official national unemployment rate, which stood at 10.6 percent in January, up from 8.5 percent one year earlier. At least 187 metropolitan areas reported unemployment rates of 10 percent or more in January.
In Detroit, devastated by the collapse of the auto industry, workers are faced with few job opportunities and the disintegration of the social institutions around which their communities and lives have been organized. Dozens of schools face closure in what amounts to an all-out assault on public education, while plans to open dozens of private and semi-private charter schools are currently underway. More than 100 public schools in all have been closed in Detroit since 2006.
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(California related story)
Full article here:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/mar2010/numm-m25.shtml
California: NUMMI auto workers railroaded into severance package
By Kevin Kearney
25 March 2010
After nearly a year of abuse and manipulation at the hands of General Motors, Toyota and the United Auto Workers union, workers at the New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. (NUMMI) plant in Fremont, California have approved a severance package. The vote came on March 17, just days before the plant is scheduled to close, and with virtually no advance notice.
The NUMMI plant was a partnership between Toyota and General Motors, before GM pulled out last year. It is the last auto production plant on the West Coast, and employs 4,600 workers. An estimated 50,000 workers will lose their jobs as a consequence of the plant closure, including those working at the many suppliers and local businesses throughout the region.
…
Cash strapped, cash starved states have also begun laying off firemen and police officers because of plunging tax revenue lost from corporations and payroll checks which affects everyone in the community. Illinois has discussed eliminating 650 state troopers from the state’s payroll and many teachers are being laid off and schools closed or consolidated.
These companies should have to return the federal stimulus money. I don’t understand why we shouldn’t tax imports from these companies that leave. They have shown no allegiance to America or it’s people.
As long as NAFTA stands as it is unchallenged, we will continue to lose manufacturing capacity until the states begin to collapse entirely.
Stop buying the products that is not made in america and they’ll come back and don’t give me that crap you can’t find it in America.
I’ll admit some things you can’t find it american made but most you can you just have to look a little harder or buy it on line. For some reason the larger retail stores like China Mart ect. would reather sale foreign junk but if you look hard enough you can find it MADE IN AMERICA
I don’t know how the whirlpool workers voted in the last election, but as a member of the building trades I know that they overwhelming vote republican. Reading the I.B.E.W. journal, I was appalled at the number of letters to the editor supporting McCain/Palin.
Here goes another one. Marlin Firearms in North Haven, CT, a 140 year old company, will soon close putting ALL 265 workers on the street. The company was bought out by NC’s Remington Arms Co, Inc who is ‘relocating’ it’s manufacturing operations to an ‘undetermined’ site. I’m betting that ‘undetermined’ site will be whatever country offers the ‘cheapest’ labor!